El Norte - Gregory Nava

una storia come milioni, si fugge dai paesi poveri verso i nostri per due motivi, lì sono trattati come schiavi, o peggio, e il Nord viene dipinto come il paradiso in terra.

e milioni partono.

il viaggio di Enrique e Rosa è un'impresa spaventosa, e meno male che stanno insieme.

El norte è un film perfetto, la cui struttura e narrazione viene ricalcata da tanti bei film successivi.

intanto guardate questo gioiellino, nessuno se ne pentirà, promesso - Ismaele 

 

 

QUI si può vedere il film completo

 

 

I contadini indiani maya, stanchi di essere pensati come nient'altro che "brazos fuertes" ("forti braccia", cioè lavoratori manuali) si organizzano per migliorare il proprio destino, ma vengono scoperti dall'esercito guatemalteco. Dopo che l'esercito ha distrutto il loro villaggio e le loro famiglie, un fratello e una sorella, adolescenti che sono appena sfuggiti al massacro, decidono di fuggire al Nord, cioè negli Stati Uniti. Dopo aver ricevuto l'aiuto clandestino di alcuni amici e il consiglio umoristico di un immigrato veterano sulle strategie per viaggiare attraverso il Messico, si fanno strada con camion, autobus e altri mezzi per Los Angeles, dove cercano di fare una nuova vita da giovani immigrati senza documenti.

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From the very first moments of "El Norte," we know that we are in the hands of a great movie. It tells a simple story in such a romantic and poetic way that we are touched, deeply and honestly, and we know we will remember the film for a long time. The movie tells the story of two young Guatemalans, a brother and sister named Rosa and Enrique, and of their long trek up through Mexico to el Norte -- the United States. Their journey begins in a small village and ends in Los Angeles, and their dream is the American Dream.

But "El Norte" takes place in the present, when we who are already Americans are not so eager for others to share our dream. Enrique and Rosa are not brave immigrants who could have been our forefathers, but two young people alive now, who look through the tattered pages of an old Good Housekeeping for their images of America.

One of the most interesting things about the film is the way it acknowledges all of the political realities of Latin America and yet resists being a "political" film. It tells its story through the eyes of its heroes, and it is one of the rare films that grants Latin Americans full humanity. They are not condescended to, they are not made to symbolize something, they are not glorified, they are simply themselves…

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…This movie, from start to finish, is a work of art. It paints a picture of an unknown world that we need to know about. The sad thing is that decades after its release, things aren’t much different. People are feeling their homelands in hope of a better life only to be taken advantage of by predators along the way. Perhaps those who advocate for change can criticize Napa for not being more gruesome (because aside from the sewer scene it’s a fairly squeaky-clean movie). There’s only a small amount of violence which is what some would say is a best-case scenario for many trying to make this impossible journey. However, there’s a fine line between being carving out a sense of realism that touches people souls and being a movie that has a really good story. Nava evokes this sense of desperation from his two lead characters that makes it go beyond a movie that you watch on because it’s a Saturday night with nothing better to do.

Since it’s been brought up several times in this review, the sewer scene is one of the most stressful scenes I’ve ever seen in film. Both Enrique and Rosa must crawl through a sewer pipe to end up on the other side of the border. It’s a dark and long crawl that seems endless. However, at one point, the siblings are attacked by rats. Nava keeps it suspenseful with creating a scene of absolute panic and fear. While it lasts for a minute, it seemed like forever. It brings up the imagery of Winston Groom’s ordeal in Room 101 in Nineteen Eighty-Four. It was a very unsettling scene that makes those fortunate enough to live in “el norte” question whether they themselves could make the journey that these two are enduring.

Gregory Nava’s El Norte is a powerful piece of cinema that shows how desperate many are for a better life and how impoverished much of the rest of the world actually is. There are cracks in the film, like the acting, that prevent this from being a steady immersive film from start to finish. Even though there are a few flaws that bring you back to the reality that this is a fictional story, Nava’s storytelling is jarring because it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a story about two people but the desperate story of millions.

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