Movies - El Norte

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	Movies - El Norte

El Norte is a 1983 film directed by Gregory Nava and written by Nava and his wife Anna Thomas. The film stars Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez and David Villalpando (in their first film roles).

The movie tells the story of a Enrique (David Villalpando) and Rosa (Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez), two teenage Mayan Native-American siblings from rural Guatemala who flee their war-torn country and try to find a new life in Los Angeles. According to what they've heard from close family friends in their village the teenagers expect to live a simple and easy life in el norte (aka the United States). Because they face severe hostility in Guatemala they flee the country of their birth and head north.

Uneducated and without connections or immigration papers both are faced with limited prospects and constant persecution: first in Mexico and later in the United States.

The writing team of Nava and Thomas split the story into three parts. The first part takes place in a small rural Guatemalan village where we learn about the central characters and what makes them flee Guatemala. During the second part the two teenagers travel through Mexico and have a horrific experience when they cross the Mexican-American border. In the final part Rosa and Enrique discover the difficulties of living in America without documentation.

The film has been released in video and in DVD format in Australia.

An actor's POV

David Villalpando, the actor who played Enrique, gave an interview with Lear Media about the film and what it meant to him. The following is what he said:

"Fifteen years ago, the indigenous people in Guatemala, were living a cruel extermination that forced them to flee toward Mexico and the United States. This exodus lasted a decade and half a million Guatemalans made the journey to America seeking for asylum and refuge.

In that time, a young Chicano film maker, full of noble idealism, honesty, and with no more resources but his immense talent to tell stories, put his eyes in this tragedy and made the most beautiful epic poem ever filmed about our indigenous nations: El Norte, a picture that gave voice to those that don´t have it.

With El Norte, the spectators of that time, became aware, in slambang, of a reality that have been communicated to them mostly through the press, but wich they had never confronted in such hard and frontal manner.

And in some way, El Norte became a powerful fighting element. Grew an audience, searched audiences, left the theatres to tell its truth. Got into the schools, universities, into film festivals, and in every forum that wanted to hear it, and it´s message was founding echo in the spectators identifyed with the story of the lost paradise of all the poor of the world in which, Rosa and Enrique represent millions of young people of any color and continent, starving for security and freedom, those that every day start the search of the lost paradise through hell.

Fifteen years had gone by since the time we made this film, and unfortunately, the story that has been told in El Norte, will have to be told for a long time. We, the latinamericans, are in deep debt with Anna Thomas and Gregory Nava. Thank you for making, from this tragedy a masterpice.

Some say that a poem never won a workers strike; this may be true, but it is also true that some poems had helped us to keep the faith, and as long as you have faith, you have not been defeated.

And if you don´t belive me, ask via internet to subcomandante Marcos, who has been fighting five years in Chiapas, Mexico, for the indigenous rigths, with no weapon other than his word. And by the way, in many of the towns El Norte was filmed. We thank the people who are helping preserve today our story in order to be shown to the future generations ."

Awards

Academy Award: Nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
Montréal World Film Festival: Winner of the Grand Prix des Amériques (Gregory Nava).
Writers Guild of America: Nominated for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
In 1995 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
.

Quotes

Rosa Xuncax: We came only to sleep, to dream. All things are lent to us. We are only on earth in passing.
Mexican Bus Driver: . . . we have arrived to Tijuana you damn Indians.
Guatemalean Soldier: . . . that bastard Indian killed Puma.
Mexican Bystander: Damn Indians I hope you both die.
Rosa Xuncax: When will we find a home?
Enrique's friend: You have to learn to talk like a Mexican. Tell me it's a hot day. Enrique Xuncax: It's a hot day. Enrique's friend: No! You won't make it two miles past the border. "It's a fu#$ing hot day." Mexicans are always saying f#$k. F#$k this, f#$k that. Now try it again.

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