Michael Apted Goes From `Thunderheart' Fiction To `Oglala' Fact

XXX "Incident at Oglala," documentary directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford. Neptune. "PG" - Parental guidance advised, due to subject matter. --------------------------------------------------------------- Rarely does one murder trial become the subject of three movies, let alone three movies released in a three-month period.

But the 1977 conviction of Leonard Peltier, a Native American who was found guilty of the shooting deaths of two FBI agents, has inspired Suzie Baer's "Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier," a documentary that opened April 10 at the Grand Illusion; Michael Apted's "Thunderheart," a fiction film that arrived the same day at several theaters; and Apted's absorbing new documentary, "Incident at Oglala," which turns up today at the Neptune.

The two nonfiction films take the position that Peltier, a Lakota activist with the American Indian Movement, was convicted on circumstantial evidence and that racism and FBI vengeance were primary motivators in his incarceration at Leavenworth Penitentiary for the past 16 years.

"Thunderheart" (which is still playing at the Alderwood Village and the Crest) uses the circumstances surrounding the case to tell a similar story about two FBI agents (Sam Shepard, Val Kilmer) investigating a reservation murder. Oliver Stone is working on yet another Peltier movie.

Ironically, the last of the three completed films to open here has been the longest in the making. Robert Redford, who narrates "Incident at Oglala" and acted as the film's executive producer, became interested in Peltier's story while he was playing a prison warden in "Brubaker" and while Peter Matthiessen was writing his 1980 book about the case, "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse."

A British filmmaker best known for directing "Coal Miner's Daughter" and the "35 Up" series, Apted didn't get involved until Redford asked him. He then incorporated some of the material into "Thunderheart," insisting that the movie be shot on a South Dakota reservation.

"Incident at Oglala" is much more cerebral than "Thunderheart," and it occasionally risks becoming too dry. But the emphasis on facts and talking heads pays off as the movie slowly builds a sense of outrage.

And the interviews are not without their emotional moments - especially the confession of a jury foreman who didn't believe the evidence the FBI presented against Peltier's friends (who were acquitted), a candid prison talk with Peltier himself and an Indian woman's frightened account of abuse on the reservation.

In the end, you may not be sure of Peltier's innocence, but the sense that he was convicted without much proof is strong. Despite the protests of such conservative publications as Media Watch ("Incidentally, Peltier's guilty," claim the editors of the current issue), these three films are consciousness-raisers rather than mystery-solvers.