CESAR CHAVEZ

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Farm Workers Unite!
The Spirit of Cesar Chavez Lives

Diego Luna’s second directorial outing is a wisely succinct biopic about the Mexican farm-worker-turned-union-activist who improved working conditions for migrant laborers in America.

The film, released to coincide with the March 31st birthday of César Estrada Chávez (1927–1993), relies on Michael Peña’s ability to flesh out the character and substance of a man whose legacy many right-wingers would rather ignore.

Peña’s stoic charisma is well suited to the role, which comprises Chavez’s poker-faced ability to speak truth to power, as well as to the angry farm workers who look to him as their leader. Chavez’s commitment to non-violence takes center stage.

Screenwriters Keir Pearson (“Hotel Rwanda”) and Timothy J. Sexton (“Children of Men”) check off other necessary boxes. Former presidents Richard Milhous Nixon and Ronald Reagan are rightfully raked over the hot coals of history for their racist diatribes against migrant workers when confronted with Chavez’s demands to improve the pay of farm workers. The filmmakers elegantly weave in archive black-and-white newsreel footage to ground the narrative in fact.

The ubiquitous John Malkovich plays Bogdanovitch, a patriarchal immigrant from Croatia and wealthy grape-farm owner who views Chavez and his migrant laborers as “children” to be punished. Although Malkovich is, if anything, too urbane for the role, he does provide the film with an easy villain for the audience to aim their anger at. His vicious character’s archetype adds to the ongoing conversation about minorities who sell out their kin as soon as they achieve any position of power or authority. Sound familiar?

The film covers the ‘60s time period, when Cesar Chavez moved with his wife Helen (America Ferrera) and their eight children, from Yuma, Arizona to Delano, California. Tired of being distanced from the plight of farm workers during his time spent working for the Community Service Organization — he was the group’s national director — Chavez is an impatient visionary, eager to get his hands dirty.

The harsh plight of Delano’s impoverished migrant workers is on display in the ramshackle houses in which they are forced to live. Chavez co-founds the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawson). Still, Cesar’s wife Helen is the first to take action whenever it’s called for. Getting arrested proves to be an awakening experience for Helen after she dares to yell “Huelga!” (strike) after a local judge makes doing so illegal.

A strike by Filipino grape pickers opens a door for Chavez to lead his group of Mexican workers to join with their Filipino comrades to demand higher wages. A grape-boycott finds supporters in American housewives.

The appearance of Robert F. Kennedy (well played by character Jack Holmes) in Delano, California to support Cesar Chavez and his union’s strike against grape farms achieves the desired impact. The scenes of Robert Kennedy speaking up on behalf of farm workers is a poignant reminder to modern moviegoers that America once had a liberal left with plenty of gas in the tank.

“Cesar Chavez” is far from being a perfect movie. Its small budget is apparent, and the film’s dramatic arc doesn’t extend as high as it might. Be that as it may, the movie reaches its goal of reminding audiences how far migrant workers have come in America since the ‘60s, and how far they have yet to go toward better working conditions and higher pay. It only takes a pinprick to burst open floodgates of public consciousness. The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on.

Rated PG-13. 101 mins.

PAN'S LABYRINTH — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Dark Journey

Guillermo del Toro Relishes the Horrors of Childhood

In discussing the leftist political themes of "The Devil’s Backbone" and "Pan’s Labyrinth," gothic horror maestro Guillermo del Toro responds by condemning what is considered "normal" because "normal creates inadequacy immediately."

The transplanted director from Mexico embraces abnormality and moral ambiguity in "Pan’s Labyrinth." It's a film he wrote and directed as a deeply personal treatise on the defense mechanisms of a child dealing with war and death. "Pan's Labyrinth" is a surreal and dark fairytale about resistance and sacrifice from the point of view of a resourceful child.

Ofelia (played with immeasurable grace by child actress Ivana Baquero) is uprooted with her ailing pregnant mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) during Franco's 1944 postwar Spain to go live with Ofelia’s stepfather Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) of Spain’s Civil Guard. Mother and daughter arrive at an abandoned rural mill that Vidal has converted into a military headquarters to oppose the local "maquis" freedom fighters. Ofelia momentarily escapes the farm’s oppressive ambience to explore an old garden labyrinth where she meets a peculiar faun (Doug Jones) who acts as a mentor. The strange creature assigns Ofelia three tasks to prove her royalty as a princess.

Ofelia's dark fantasies of fairies and monsters are matched by the savage hostilities incited by Captain Vidal’s obsessive reign of power. The hideous but friendly faun gradually becomes beautiful as Ofelia fulfills his commands of obtaining a key from a repulsive toad, visiting a pale monster with eyeballs in the palms of his hands at a banquet from which she must not eat, and releasing the blood of an innocent. This is thought-provoking stuff that del Toro presents with fluid attention to detail. You couldn't hope for a more visually lush experience.

After the film’s premiere in Cannes del Toro said, "In this movie, I think the fascist is more terrifying than any of the creatures Ofelia encounters in her fantasy. I feel that the more humanist point of view is the one that I like. I love "Beauty and the Beast" by Jean Cocteau. I love "Frankenstein" by James Whale. I like "Night of the Hunter."

Taking into account del Toro's stated influences, you can see where each have an impact on the film he has crafted from every angle. Here we have gothic horror combined with fantasy in a purely original way that nevertheless breathes with a sense of tradition.

"Pan’s Labyrinth" is set at the end of World War II when the Spanish resistance still had a fighting chance against Franco’s regime if allied support arrived in time. The movie works intriguingly opposite Steven Soderbergh’s "The Good German" as a phantasmagorical reflection of an underground reality seething beneath the scorched and bloody soldier-inhabited earth above.

Guillermo del Toro is a bold creator of modern fairytales in the tradition of the Grimm Brothers, as mixed with a healthy sprinkling of Greek mythology. In planning his films, the director draws colorful drawings of the creatures he will bring to life, such as the mandrake root that Ofelia places in a bowl of milk-and-water beneath her mother’s bed to cure her sickness and protect her unborn child.

As del Toro points out, "There is a mythology that you can grow a baby out of a mandrake." Mandrake is another name for ginseng, but del Toro proposes the plant was traditionally born under the gallows at the feet of hanging victims who spasmed as they died. "You had to look for it under a full moon with a black dog and wear protection on your ears because, when the dog digs for it, the mandrake screams and the dog dies. And if you don’t have protection, you die." The childhood desperation that permeates his dramatic sensibility is elevated by del Toro’s sincere devotion to imaginary belief systems rooted in cycles of nature.

Del Toro says, "Pan’s Labyrinth" is an adult movie about being a kid. My favorite kid movies are "The 400 Blows," or "Au revoir, les enfants" by Louis Malle or "The Tin Drum." None of these are movies that I would play along with "Chicken Little" for my daughters, but they are movies, nevertheless, about childhood."

Add "Pan's Labyrinth" to that list.

Rated R. 120 mins.

21 GRAMS

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Body And Soul
Alejandro Inarritu Delivers Life
By Cole Smithey

After his Oscar nominated first feature "Amores Perros," director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu returns to the silver screen with an ambitious English-speaking drama that sizzles with the virtuosity of a master storyteller.

"21 Grams" elegantly weaves the intersecting lives of three people united by death as contemplation on the significance of human life.

The 21 grams of the title is a mythic amount of weight that each human body loses in death.

This physical and metaphorical touchstone serves a practical homing device for Inarritu’s shuffled plot design that seamlessly telescopes through flashbacks and forward moving action. "21 Grams" is a potent and immediate movie that raises the bar on cinematic storytelling.

Inarritu worked with his screenwriting partner from "Amores Perros" to write "21 Grams" with Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts in mind for the story’s deteriorating characters. Sean Penn is in top form as Paul Rivers a college professor awaiting a heart transplant while his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) tries to become pregnant through artificial insemination before her husband succumbs.

Christina Peck (Naomi Watts) is a loving wife and mother of two little girls when a hit and run accident extracts her family from her grasp. Benicio Del Toro is Jack Jordan an ex-con who has replaced his lawless tendencies with religious faith to protect himself and his family.

We experience the characters as essential members of families whose unseen orbits pull together when Jack Jordan accidentally runs down Christina’s family with his pick-up truck while on his way home to a small celebration with his family and friends. Jack has recently been fired from his job at a country club for his tattoos, which symbolically include a heart that decorates his neck. Jack is the most morally empathetic character in the film because he has fallen the farthest and yet strives with every nerve in his body to maintain his sobriety and sanity in the face of the gloom and temptation that surrounds him.

The death of Christina’s husband Michael (Danny Huston) provides Paul (Penn) with the very heart that is transplanted into his chest and allows him to go on living. Paul becomes the emotional catalyst of the story because he refuses to accept the concealment of his donor’s identity and takes it upon himself to hire a private detective to disclose the source of his lifesaving heart. Paul’s burden is curiosity, while Christina’s hardship is the loss of her family. But it’s from Jack’s sense of guilt and responsibility that the story reveals its thematic soul and transcends Paul’s inquisitiveness and Christina’s sense of revenge.

The striking look of "21 Grams" comes from cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who gave similar grit and saturated color to "Amores Perros." Prieto again uses a hand-held camera to interact with the story as a coordinated invisible member of the onscreen action.

The realism and percolating thematic bubbles that pop from the unfolding narrative puzzle come directly from Prieto’s balanced visual sensibilities. But the rawness of Inarritu’s film comes from the passionate milieu that the film’s ensemble connects with. The vibe is closest to the one that writer/director Joe Carnahan presented with his recent tour de force "Narc." The disjointed plotting of "21 Grams" is the film’s most polished device and wraps the story in circling layers that are then punctured by the slipping intentions of its characters.

Some critics have complained about the bravura narrative splicing of "21 Grams" as being "difficult to follow." But they miss the validity of the tact’s overall effect because they are so concerned with "following" the story.

This is a daring movie that deals with loss of family, pride, dignity, faith, and ultimately a person’s very soul. The value of a human life is an inestimable quantity that can only be inferred by the way that people treat one another. "21 Grams" commands a running discourse that runs as a constant thematic thread through all of humanity. The movie delivers life as a floating mysterious entity that we all share. It’s very few films that achieve anything remotely close.

Rated R. 125 mins.