Up Heartbreak Hill (Erica Scharf, 2011): USA

Reviwed by Andrea Uttenthal. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2012.

Up Heartbreak Hill is a documentary by Erica Scharf that chronicles the lives of three Native American high schoolers living in the outback of the Navajo Nation. Gabby, Tamara and Thomas have to decide wether or not to leave the reservation in pursuit of educational opportunities. It’s a tough decision and everything is taking into debate.

The population of the Navajo is 250.000 people. 1 out of 10 will complete college, and many will seek back to the reservation after being away. Our three main characters in this documentary want to get a college degree, but they all have difficulties choosing where to go and handling the thought of leaving their family and community. “Our ancestors didn’t have to think about education.” They all just stayed at the reservation taking care of the nature and their families in the different tribes.  Tribal elders urge members of the younger generation to leave, acquire an education or learn a trade, and return home with the skills to help their people. Of course the families wants their kids to stay close to home, but most of them understand why their kids want to leave the nation to complete their education.

“I love the mountain, the trees and the thought of being free” says Thomas. He has found joy in life by running. He’s one of the best runners in the Navajo nation and is competing regularly. He wants to go to college and then come back after getting a degree. He really wants to make a difference to his nation.

“College is sorta a yes and a no” – Tamara. They want to make the right choice, without hurting someone’s feelings and doing whats best for them at the same time. They hesitate to separate from their families and traditions, rooted to a home in equal parts both by love, obligation and fear. Many people in the reservation is living a poor life. With an unemployment rate near 58% and and a per capita income under $4,600, Navajo has few prospects.

“Everyone on my mom’s side do drugs and are alcoholics, while everyone on my dad’s side are in jail”, tells Gabby. She used to be on drugs herself, but she’s off that now. Gabby’s has a passion for photography, which captures most of her time. “I want to get a degree!”.

We follow the every day life of the three Native Americans as they get closer to the end of their senior year in high school and closer to the making of their final decision. They visit different colleges around and outside of New Mexico, which helps them to find out who they are and want they want.

Throughout the documentary you enjoy the beautiful nature of Navajo nation through colorful and vivid images of the reservation and marvellous sunsets. You can’t help falling in love with this peaceful place, where the people living there are so largely isolated from mainstream America. I can totally understand why it’s such a tough decision to make, since the reservation is all they got. They grew up here, as did their parents and grandparents etc. and leaving elsewhere would be very different.

By watching this documentary you get to experience how different a lifestyle people in the Navajo nation live and you learn how lucky you really are. At least that’s how I felt after watching it. They don’t have as many opportunities as so many other young adults. They have to leave in pursuit of educational and economic opportunities, because the reservation doesn’t offer much else that a beautiful nature and what their ancestors built. But as being said in the end of the documentary:

“Everything can happen if willing to change. You can’t move forward if stuck in the past.”