El Norte
May 3, 2009
Gregory Nava's wrenching and beautiful epic about a displaced Mayan brother and sister illegally crossing the Mexican border to California remains important today, both as one of the first American independent films to cross over with a profitable campaign, and as an engrossing examination of the “shadow” immigrant culture that American production would be lost without, a topic that remains prescient two and a half decades later. With a skilled mix of Latin American magical realism and socio-political realism, Nava takes his heroes, Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutierre) and Enrique (David Villalpando), from war-torn Guatemala, where their pro-union mother and father are killed by local military, through Mexico and it's shanty-towns and human smuggling coyotes, over the border (in a harrowing sequence involving a swarm of rats and a never-ending sewer tunnel), and to L.A., where life as an illegal, underpaid immigrant is hardly the American Dream they were anticipating. Hauntingly beautiful in every way, from the bright colors of the traditional Mayan Indian dress, to the lyrical and symbolic editing structure, which relies on short dream sequences and symbols, Nava's film is one of a kind, and Criterion's much anticipated DVD, with a commentary track and hour long documentary, recounts the entire story of the impossibly difficult Mexican/California shoot, and it's almost as good as the film itself.
By Adam Suraf