The hit Netflix movie Rez Ball was inspired by a true story, and the origins of the basketball movie are just as engaging as the film itself. Rez Ball became very popular shortly after it was released, and it could even make a case for being one of the best movies on Netflix. A big reason it has gained so much popularity is because it paints an earnest and honest portrayal of life on a reservation. That portrayal makes sense, given Rez Ball was written by one of the creators of Reservation Dogs, which is also inspired by Native American tribes.
Rez Ball follows the Chuska Warriors, a high school basketball team made up of Navajo players and coaches. After tragedy strikes their star player, Jimmy Holiday (Kauchani Bratt) takes over the team and has to help them live up to both their own expectations and those of the community they’re part of. Rez Ball is a heartbreaking, and simultaneously heartwarming, story, and the true story it was inspired by is just as interesting. While it is inspired by real events and people, however, Rez Ball isn’t technically a true story.
Rez Ball Was Partially Inspired By The Chinle High School Wildcats
Though it follows the Chuska Warriors in New Mexico, Rez Ball was actually inspired by the Chinle High School Wildcats of Arizona. The Wildcats were the subject of Michael Powell’s 2019 book “Canyon Dreams: A Basketball Season on the Navajo Nation,” which also served as the inspiration for the movie. Canyon Dreams is a journalistic account of a season the Wildcats played that Powell personally attended, and it chronicles the team’s ups and downs, the players’ hopes and dreams, and the community’s support for the high school. Though it did inspire Rez Ball, Canyon Dreams wasn’t actually the movie’s source material.
How Director Sydney Freeland’s Own Experience Inspired Rez Ball
Sterlin Harjo, a co-writer of Rez Ball, told Time that he didn’t use Canyon Dreams as a reference or even read it; he instead used director Sydney Freeland’s experiences playing basketball while growing up on a Navajo reservation.
“It was from her community and she played basketball there. It was really about just telling a real story that we both connected to and felt authentic and real to us.”
Freeland mentioned that basketball is an integral part of life for the Navajo community she’s part of, partially because they don’t have college or professional teams. Freeland said, “What you have is high school sports, and a lot of that fell onto basketball because that’s what a lot of indigenous communities excelled at.” To illustrate just how intense the Navajo nation was about basketball when Freeland was playing, she mentioned an anecdote about being escorted to a game by police officers because of the rivalries between tribes.
Related Rez Ball Review: Netflix’s Inspiring Sports Drama Takes A Challenging Subject & Fills It With Hope Rez Ball is a beautiful and challenging sports drama that depicts the tragic true story of events that shaped a Native American community.
Other parts of Freeland’s experience playing basketball also made their way into Rez Ball. She mentioned that teams would talk trash to each other in their native languages and not understand each other, and a similar thing happens with the Navajo language in the film, when the team begins to call plays in Navajo. Additionally, Harjo mentioned why they decided to make the team’s coach, Heather Hobbs, a woman.
“Both Sydney and I come from matriarchal communities. You get disciplined by the women, and you have strong women to look up to whether you’re a woman or a young man or whatever.”
As Harjo explained, the Warriors are coached by Heather to represent how the Navajo community has strong female role models. Freeland also mentioned that the girl’s basketball teams are often just as good, or better, than the boy’s teams – something that was shown in the scrimmage early on in Rez Ball.
Are Rez Ball’s Characters Based On Real People?
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Rez Ball is inspired by two different true accounts – both Sydney Freeland’s own experiences and Canyon Dreams – but the story is original. None of the characters in Rez Ball are real people, but they do experience many of the triumphs and tragedies Navajo and Native American people face in real life. In that way, the characters of Rez Ball are founded in reality, even though the movie can’t be considered one of the best true stories on Netflix. Additionally, the Chuska Warriors are a real high-school team in New Mexico, and some of their seasons may have played out similarly to the one shown in Rez Ball.
The movie didn’t need to be a fully historical account, because Rez Ball still gets to the truth of its central issues.
Even though Rez Ball isn’t an entirely historical account of a basketball season for a Navajo team, it doesn’t need to be. The experiences Harjo and Freeland built their movie upon are largely universal, and not just to Native American people. Rez Ball is a story about working through tragedy and grief, learning to work as a team, and the realities of life on a reservation. The movie didn’t need to be a fully historical account, because Rez Ball still gets to the truth of its central issues.
Source: Time