This is an incredible film from start to finish. This is one of the rare films that complement the book, M.T. Kelly's "A Dream Like Mine" perfectly. My wife and I have watched the movie several times and read the book as well. We have concluded that Arthur does not exist as a "real" being in the story but a construct of Peter's due to his rage at losing his battle in court (or rage at his cause being lost as a writer in the book). In Ojibwe stories there are spirits that are normally powerless that can be induced to possess a person to give them short lived power. With the spirit the recipient had great powers of vengeance in exchange for their souls. In the stories this would be what happens to a warrior who comes home to find his village destroyed by another tribe. He would be possessed and become an avenging monster. When talking of Arthur, Wilf refers to him as 'coming from the east' and 'not being from us' which seems to imply that it is Peter that brings the avenging spirit. In the book the clincher is that as Peter is being arrested the mill owner denies there ever being an Arthur at all and that Peter was responsible for the kidnapping.
