3/12/15: Where There’s a Mom, There’s a Way

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abandoned in a foreign place, adult friendships, Andres Munar, Anthony Chisholm, bittersweet, Bradford Young, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, Colombian immigrants, coming of age, courage, dramas, dysfunctional marriage, Eddie Martinez, Entre Nos, feature-film debut, female friendships, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, Gil Talmi, Gloria La Morte, homeless, homeless children, husband-wife relationship, immigration, inspired by true events, Jacqueline Duprey, Laura Montana, motherhood, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Paola Mendoza, Sarita Choudhury, Sebastian Villada, self-sacrifice, set in New York City, single mother, Spanish-language films, strength, writer-director-actor

Think about Mariana (Paola Mendoza) the next time you’re having a bummer day: uprooting herself and her two children from their lives in Colombia, she follows her shifty husband, Antonio (Andres Munar), all the way to Queens, New York, only for him to suddenly head off to sunny Miami, where he’s decided to start a new life…one that doesn’t include his “old” family. Alone in a foreign land, unable to speak the language, jobless and with children in tow, Mariana’s options look as grim and hopeless as they do scarce. Like I said: there are bad days…and then there are BAD days.

The human spirit is a funny thing, though, the kind of inner power that would make a superhero blush. When someone has the will to survive and the relentless drive to keep pushing forward, against all odds…well, pretty much anything is possible. Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte’s extraordinary Entre Nos (2009) is testament to this notion of inner strength, a semi-autobiographical story about an unstoppable mother’s ferocious fight to keep her family together, despite every disaster, tragedy, hiccup and speed bump that the universe can possibly throw at her. What could have been maudlin, overly emotional or obvious becomes vibrant, life-affirming and genuinely resonant in the hands of the truly gifted filmmakers and cast.

While Entre Nos (roughly, “between us”) is about the struggles that immigrants face when coming to a new country, it’s also about how easy it is for people to slip from the scant comfort of the “lower” classes into the abject terror of homelessness: as Mendoza and La Morte show, there’s only a few short steps and misfortunes that lead from four walls and a floor to a park bench. There’s a universality to the film that goes far beyond the nationalities of its protagonists: while not all of may have first-hand experiences with the struggles of being an emigrant to a foreign country, it’s fair to say that any and everyone worries, at least in the back of their heads, where their next meal is coming from.

It’s to Mendoza and La Morte’s great credit that they manage to combine these twin struggles, that of the immigrant and the newly homeless, into such a potent, vibrant stew. As mentioned earlier, there’s nothing overly sentimental or aggressively manipulative about the film: we’re simply shown a woman who’s been thrown into a hole and, rather than bemoan that fact, simply puts her head down and starts digging her way out. There’s a refreshing matter-of-factness to the way in which Mariana sizes up any given situation and acts: she’s conflicted, sure, and we get more than a couple heart-breaking breakdown, along the way…that’s just the unfortunate other half of the human condition. When the chips are down, however, Mariana has a resilience and power that’s positively inspiring: if she doesn’t let life beat her down, why should we?

Entre Nos, then, is about the struggles of the immigrant and the ever-present threat of personal and economic collapse: that would be a potent enough one-two punch for just about any film. There’s more under the hood, however, than just the “big” issues: Mendoza and La Morte’s film is also about the relationship between a mother and her children, about trying to balance being a kid with becoming an adult and about the importance of providing for your family, regardless of the costs or sacrifice. It’s about friendships, those halting ones that begin over shared strife and continue based on genuine love.

This is Mariana’s story but it’s not hers, alone, to tell: characters like the kindly recycling maven, Joe (Anthony Chisholm), or Mariana’s landlord/hesitant friend, Preet (an absolutely extraordinary Sarita Choudhury), contribute just as much to the overall tapestry, but we’d be remiss not to mention the reason for Mariana’s constant struggle: her beloved son, Gabriel (Sebastian Villada), and daughter, Andrea (Laura Montana). As strong as the rest of the cast are, Villada and Montana still manage to shine as the equally resilient kids. It’s a real treat watching Gabriel, slowly, become a man, while Andrea provides a necessary innocence and sense of child-like optimism to circumstances that could certainly be deemed soul-crushing.

Entre Nos isn’t just an acting tour de force, however: the film is exquisitely crafted and looks amazing. Props to Gil Talmi for a funky, head-bobbing score that mixes cumbias with more “traditional” dramatic scores and only occasionally dips into stereotypically “serious” territory. The often gorgeous cinematography, courtesy of Bradford Young, has endless appeal: there’s one shot that frames Mariana and her sleeping children like the Pieta and is almost impossibly beautiful. In the years since Entre Nos’ release, Young would go on to shoot a couple of films called Selma (2014) and A Most Violent Year (2014): you know…no big deal…

Like the particular spot of land that it depicts, Entre Nos is nothing if not a melting pot of influences, styles, points of view and ways of life. There’s a vibrancy and immediacy to the proceedings that pulls viewers in and keeps us right in the thick of things: if I had to compare the filmmakers’ style to anything, it would be latter-day John Sayles, which is pretty damn high praise, indeed. There’s an eye and ear for the way that every-day folk talk and interact that cuts thorough generations of artificial bullshit and gets right to the heart of the human condition: each and every one of us deserves to live our lives to the fullest of our potential, regardless of our individual situations.

We find out, at the end, that Andrea became a filmmaker and created Entre Nos as a tribute and testament to the strength of her mother. It makes perfect sense: everything about the film has the feel of a passion project and Mendoza’s triple-threat of writing-directing-acting is nothing short of stunning. Reminiscent of Marion Cotillard’s powerful blend of iron-will and vulnerability, Mendoza’s performance is utterly unforgettable and the film’s deserves all of the love that it’s received at festivals since its release (although a little mainstream attention might be nice…).

Exemplifying the very best aspects of the human condition, Entre Nos is a film that deserves not only praise for its technical and thematic elements but for its ability to unite us all under one common need, regardless of race, class, gender, nationality or political affiliation: if you can’t understand and empathize with Mariana’s need to make a better life for herself and her children, well, pardner…I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you’re not human. In this one case, the film was definitely not made for you: move along…absolutely nothing to see here, whatsoever.

7/11/14: The Anarchist and the Damage Done

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Alessandro Mario, anarchists, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, based on a true story, cinema, crime film, Daniel Mooney, David Strathairn, Film, film reviews, historical drama, immigration, independent film, J. Edgar Hoover, James Madio, labor unions, Luigi Galleani, mail bombs, movie, Nicola Sacco, No God No Master, Ray Wise, rights of the workers, Sacco and Vanzetti, Sam Witwer, Sean McNall, terrorists, Terry Green, William Flynn, writer-director

Historical dramas walk a pretty difficult line, in many cases: they need to be close enough to the actual historical events to still be recognized as such but they also need to possess enough of the characteristics of fictional dramas to hold their own as actual cinematic narrative. Too much of the history and you might end up with something closer to a documentary, whereas too little history and you wind up with FDR: American Badass (2012).

In many ways, it’s to the credit of writer-director Terry Green’s No God, No Master (2012) that I didn’t realize I was watching something based on a true story until the character of Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Alessandro Mario) made his first appearance. At that point, however, my old high school history class kicked in and I knew that I was actually watching a fictionalized account of the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial from the 1920s. Sneaky move there, Terry.

Up to that point, Green’s film had been a well-made, interesting and rather modest film about the hunt for someone mailing package bombs to prominent political figures. The person doing the hunting is U.S. Bureau of Investigations Agent William Flynn (David Strathairn), a kind-hearted, straight-as-an-arrow lawman navigating the often choppy seas of political self-interest and crooked superior officers. He’s on the case after a young delivery boy is literally blown off his bicycle after dropping one of the package bombs. Together with his partner, Gino (Sam Witwer), William ends up tracing the bombs all the way to an anarchist rabble-rouser by the name of Luigi Galleani (Daniel Mooney). Seems that Galleani wants to bring the system down the old-fashioned way: violence. Hiding within plain sight by allying himself with local labor organizer Carlo Tresca (Edoardo Ballerini), Galleani plans to blow up the various rich and powerful members of a planning commission, including bigwigs like the mayor and John D. Rockefeller.

Politics rears its ugly head, however, when various crooked politicos like Attorney General Mitchell Palmer (Ray Wise) and J. Edgar Hoover (Sean McNall) attempt to use the bombing situation as a way to strike back at not only the anarchists but also at innocent immigrants and labor activists. Soon, William realizes that the people he works for are getting harder and harder to tell apart from the criminals he’s been hired to put away.

Into all of this, then, come the aforementioned real-life historical figures of Nicola Sacco (James Maddio) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti are a couple of idealistic, hard-working immigrants who also happen to be anarchists and end up getting swept up in the turbulent events of the time and ground into powder by the political system. The pair find themselves framed for a crime that they didn’t commit, tried and sentenced with no thought for actual justice and executed so as to “set an example” for any who might follow in their footsteps. This, then, is really no different from the actual historical record: the fictional Sacco and Vanzetti end up the same as their real-life counterparts.

What’s interesting, however, is how Green treats the pair like footnotes in the film. Truth be told, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti might be the weakest part of the film, feeling like more of an extraneous addition than anything actually necessary. It’s abundantly clear from the get-go that our protagonist and primary focus is the character of William Flynn: he’s the “traditional” hero, gets the most screen-time, as a complete character arc, gets a backstory, etc. Sacco and Vanzetti, on the other hand, are more like historical background, similar to the various U.S. Presidents and other historical figures who appear in the margins of films like Forrest Gump (1994) or The Butler (2013). We never learn enough about them to prevent them from seeming more like symbols or plot devices in the film than actual characters.

Minor quibbles aside, however, I genuinely enjoyed No God, No Master. Strathairn is excellent as William Flynn, portraying a character that manages to be tough as nails yet strangely soothing at the same time. In many ways, the film’s look and tone reminded me of a modern TV series such as Copper or Ripper Street and I kept imagining what it would be like to have a serial that followed the adventures of Strathairn’s Flynn. The rest of the cast is suitably good, with Wise doing one of his patented slimy villain roles and Mooney bringing a believably bug-eyed zeal to his portrayal of Galleani. The whole film has a well-made, glossy feel and clips along at an energetic pace: there’s never a point where anything drags and if the film can get occasionally heavy-handed (many of the courtroom speeches in the latter half are hammered home), it never succumbs to melodrama. If anything, Green has a habit of downplaying everything, which works nicely with Strathairn’s laid-back style.

As a character-driven political mystery, No God, No Master is quite good, although I’m not sure how the film stands on a strictly historical level. Certainly, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti feels tagged on, as if Green wanted to attach yet one more layer of relevance to the project. He needn’t have bothered: on its own, No God, No Master is an above-average drama and well worth a watch. If you’ve come strictly for the tale of Sacco and Vanzetti, however, you might be at the wrong place.