They hire a "coyote," a man expert at helping immigrants enter America, and have the good luck to find an honest one. Their progress through Mexico is hard enough, but crossing of the border is a nightmare. They have a good idea of America, they think, from the Good Housekeeping magazines treasured by their godmother Josefita (Stella Quan), who gives them her savings for the journey and describes a land where everyone - even the poor - has a refrigerator and an indoor toilet. And, yes, events like this are the price we are willing to pay for our morning coffee I confess when I order my first cup, I do not much think of the Arturos and the union-busting international corporations that make their own laws.Įnrique and Rosa have hidden, and feel forced to flee. Their mother ( Alicia del Lago) disappears. Their father Arturo ( Ernesto Gomez Cruz) is trying to organize a workers' union he is betrayed, and everyone at a union meeting is murdered by government troops. Meals by candlelight are followed by the evening stroll on the little local ramblas.īut the people spend long hours at backbreaking labor, picking coffee beans under the harsh eyes of intimidating overseers. In the opening scenes, they live as their ancestors have for many generations, in a village of beauty and dignity, a true community. They have the spontaneous, unrehearsed quality of some of the actors in neo-realist films like " The Bicycle Thief," and an infectious optimism and naivete that makes us protective of them. The movie stars two unknowns, David Villalpando as Enrique, and Zaide Silvia Gutierrez as his sister Rosa. Nava once explained to me one reason for the Mexican love of color: "The rich browns and reds and yellows make brown skin look beautiful American interiors are painted an eggshell white that doesn't do much for brown skin or any other kind of skin." ![]() An early scene involving clouds of butterflies combines local legend with magical realism, and abundant life comes into the film through the shirts, dresses, ponchos and blankets of the characters, and through the joyous use of color in their homes and villages. The filmmakers tell harrowing stories of cash payoffs at gunpoint, and how Nava's parents slipped out of the country carrying some of the dailies.īut the film never reflects that backstage ordeal it chooses, indeed, to paint its story not in the grim grays of neorealism, but with the palette of Mexico, filled with color and fantasy. It was shot partly in Mexico, and then, after their exposed footage and an accountant were seized and held for ransom, in California. At 139 minutes, it is told in three sections, concerning the early life of the brother and sister, their harrowing trek to "el norte," and their life in Los Angeles. And when they made "El Norte," no film like it had been attempted.ĭespite its limited budget, the movie is bursting with energy and ambition. ![]() When they founded the IFP, everyone at the meeting would fit comfortably into their living room. They were the co-founders of the Independent Feature Project, which today holds the Independent Spirit Awards in a vast tent on the beach at Santa Monica, Calif. That was before Sundance, before IFC, before Miramax. But I met Nava and Thomas much earlier, in 1976 at the Chicago Film Festival with their first film, "The Confessions of Amans." It cost $24,000 and won the prize as best first feature. They were later to make " My Family" (1995), which traces three generations of a Mexican-American family in Los Angeles, and Nava is currently the executive producer and supervising director of the "American Family" series on PBS, about an extended Latino family in Los Angeles. The movie was directed by Gregory Nava, produced by Anna Thomas, and co-written by both of them.
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