Another glorious, glorious portrait on race and the roles women play—by pressure, by tradition, by choice. One of the underlying threads of Angélica, one which touched me deeply, is the mother-daughter relationship. As with Julieta, this is a troubled relationship, further complicated by racial issues (mom is white, daughter is mixed)—but this racial difference, apparently only a surface one, serves to symbolize a deeper divide, one most appropriately blamed on generational gaps, and—coming full circle—on the ways perception of darker skin has evolved (and has yet to evolve).
I believe this is director & screenwriter Marisol Gómez-Mouakad's formal debut, and, yes, there are some bits of production that could be improved on. The budget clearly didn't cover extensive filming in NYC, so the bits set there may seem somewhat raw and unpolished. Some of the post-production could also do with some work; editing and continuity issues, but mostly minor. It's clear, however, that Ms. Gómez-Mouakad is a talent to be watched in coming years. There are many—many—long-time filmmakers who can't come within ten feet of her sensibility and sheer storytelling power.
Above all, this is a story about finding ourselves—our self, the true one, the one that doesn't hinge on approval from the ones we love, or the ones who profess to love us—and about what it takes to be true to it. It is a film about love, too; the romantic variety, and the familial one. It is a film about dreams, the ones we forget, and the ones that somehow find their way back to us.
This coming Sunday, June 4th, there will be elections in Mexico. Not presidential; only three states will be voting for new governors (and a fourth will be electing some 200 mayors). But these elections — the results in one state in particular — will shape the future of Mexico, for at least the next decade.
Elections for mayor are happening in the state of Veracruz, and elections for governor in Nayarit, Coahuila, and the state of Mexico. Yes, we have a state called after the country; someone must've run out of naming ideas... No, not really. It's more like the country is named after the state—or, actually, the city. In brief, when the Spanish conquered this land they'd call La Nueva España (New Spain, stretching from Nicaragua all the way up to British Columbia), they divided it into reinos, which translates literally as 'kingdoms' but it's in practice more like provinces, and one of these provinces, because it included the Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan (now rather in ruins), was named México. After independence from Spain came about and Mexico City was proclaimed the capital of this brand-new nation (1824), the city separated from the state into the Distrito Federal, DF for short (kind of like Washington, DC ). And so we ended up with both a city and a state (and a country) named México.
La Nueva España, circa 1821. At one point, the territory also included Cuba and the Philippines.
Back to the present. As I write (and as you read), the electoral process is going on in the state of México—and it promises to be one of the dirtiest ever. Which, if you know anything about Mexican elections, you know that's saying a lot. For as long as I can remember, and as long as my parents can remember, elections in México have always been 'arranged'. We all knew upfront who the new president would be, who the new governors, mayors, members of parliament, all of them, simply by virtue of the party they belonged to. The PRI held on to its dictatorship hand-me-down rule for 70 years by becoming masters of electoral fraud—and, of course, this resulted in a growing cynical defeatism in the population, which played right into their hands.
You were tired of the same-old up in Olympus, the same elites decade after decade passing around power among them, like the in clique at Homecoming passing around a bottle of Chivas and hiding it every time you come close. What Chivas, man? You were tired of your little voice never being heard above the rabble and rouse of all these newly-minted minorities clamoring for their rights. What about yours, eh? We gotta take America back! You were tired of being left out, of watching from the sidelines as decision after decision was made in direct contravention to your interests, and direct contradiction to your wholesome, farm-grown, old-school common sense. You were tired of feeling like the outsider—in your own damn country! You were tired of being treated like a second-class citizen, and of your country being treated like a second-tier nation around the world.
And so you did it. You elected a man that promised to clean out that in clique, shatter that insider elite to smithereens. Government for the people, right? The real people, the ones that really matter. Someone who will look out for the actual Americans, not a bunch of wetback Mohammed-loving darkie upstarts who have no business being here anyway. And a businessman, too, because who better to resolve the nation's economic problems than a man who's spent his entire life in business? I mean, business is all about getting stuff done, right? It's all about the bottom line, and if we can make the bottom line 'Making America Great Again', then—well, by god, that's exactly what our government needs to be sane again!
I get it. Change—drastic, radical change—is incredibly attractive. Hope is even more so. In the face of such change, such possibilities, all that jaded disillusionment with a system that has betrayed you over and over recedes like a tide pulling back to reveal a beach rife with sea-born jewels. You'd given up, you'd learned to live with the despair and ignominy of being unheard and ignored—and now, against all odds, here is someone who speaks your thoughts, who gets you and the problems—the injustices—you live with every day, and who means to set all these wrongs aright. Why would you not vote for him?
I get, too, that your choices weren't all that great to begin with. I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton; actually, the only way I would've voted for her (if I were a US citizen) is if her opponent was ridiculously, hugely unqualified for office. Any office.
Which—ahem—was exactly what happened.
I hate to break it to you, Trump supporters, but you made a gross miscalculation here. You bought into exactly what Trump wanted you to, and you've now elected a president who has no intention of creating anything except benefits and advantages for himself.
Well, you might be thinking, what's wrong with a little self-interest? Looking out for yourself is, after all, the core of the 'American'* dream, isn't it? And what president—what politician—hasn't put him/herself first in the course of their tenure? You may be right; politicians in general seem to be lacking in basic human empathy. But Trump's self-interest, whether he takes it to a whole new level or just falls in with that 'swamp' he promised to drain, will be just the tip of the iceberg.
Trump himself, or a large majority of his supporters, may not be hate-driven KKK building wooden crosses in their spare time; Trump, I believe, is as much a product of his time as Hitler or Stalin (or Nero or Pinochet) were of theirs. Trump, like so many before him, has had the smarts to harness the tides sweeping the country (and the world) and ride them to the cusp of power.
And that, right there, is the real tragedy of the 2016 US election. Trump (et al) may not be a racist, misogynist bigot, but his rhetoric has unleashed racism, and misogyny, and bigotry. He—his expressions, his posturing, his 'handling' of protest and criticism—has enabled, and, further, legitimized, the hatred distilled over decades of discontent and (perceived or real) injustice. Whether intentionally or not (and I do believe it was intentional, seeing the success he had with it), he let the genie out of the bottle... And there's no turning back from that now.
It took me two weeks to begin to verbalize the devastation Nov. 8th left me with. I watched the election coverage from 5pm to 3am (CUR time). I cried like a baby at Trump's victory speech. The world is not the place I thought it was, and it was that realization, more than anything else (and there was plenty else), which destroyed me so totally. I am fortunate to have mostly liberal, left-leaning friends and acquaintances, though that may be a curse disguised as a blessing: it created an echo chamber, a bubble of opinions and prognostications that took it for granted that the majority of US citizens were, no doubt, on the side of equality and civil liberties and basic human rights. And there was no way—no way—that this majority would allow this clown, this unbelievable idiot, to get to the White House. We absolutely believed that—even though we postulated, for the sake of intellectual discourse, the possibility and the whys and wherefores of why it could happen... But it really came down to discussions of alternate realities, theoretical questions that seemed impossible to translate to the world we knew, the country we loved—yes, even us foreigners, to whom the US has always stood as an example of how things should be, the country we held up to our own Latin American governments as the blueprint of what we had to aspire to, what we had to become.
Well. That's done, I suppose. I can no longer defend the US against its detractors. On the contrary, I now must accept, as much as it hurts, that they, these detractors, were right. The US has a long, long history of racism and bigotry, of segregation and abuse of minorities, of religious discrimination, of willful ignorance and deficient education—it's all been documented, it's all public knowledge. How, then, did we miss it? How did the US become the beacon for civil rights that we all believed it to be? How could we be so, so wrong?
No, it is not Trump's fault. It's yours. Because, regardless of what 'benefits' you heard for yourself in Trump's speeches, you also heard the bigotry—and either you agreed with it, or you chose to ignore it. Whichever it was, your bigotry or your ignorance, that is what allowed Trump to run, and to win. If it was bigotry, I have nothing to say to you. If it was ignorance, though, you may not be beyond redemption.
This is what you need to do: you need to hold your president accountable. You need to educate yourself on his policies and his actions, and you need to make sure that a) he stays on track to provide all those 'benefits' (jobs, whatever) he promised, b) that he does so in a way that doesn't destroy your country's economy (see the bit on educating yourself), and, most importantly, c) you need to stop turning a blind eye on the racism and bigotry. You, as a Trump supporter, have the power right now—and the obligation—to ensure all this talk of walls and deportations and registrations and camps (camps!!! just listen to yourselves!!!) remains only talk. You need to stand up for civil rights and for minorities—because you, white US citizen, are a minority. 'America' has never been white. Stop treating 'others' as minorities. You are the minority, and it's about time you develop some empathy for those whose lands and rights you have stolen and defiled.
This one was quick and dirty; Café Tacuba took the lead out of the gate, but Señor Guerra didn't let that stand for long.
Café Tacuba: 3
Birgit
Lee
Dixie
Juan Luis Guerra: 5
Cherdo
Michele
Jeffrey
Mike
John
I love the original, both for its musical integrity and for the lyrics, for Guerra's mastery of both craft and art, and for the subtlety of its lyrics, and it gets me dancing every time. But Café Tacuba's version gives me chills. Yes, of course it's related to my Mexican identity, to how the Son Jarocho speaks to my soul... Perhaps I can't be objective. Perhaps it's a myth to think we can judge any form of art objectively. So, with apologies to Señor Guerra, whom I admire deeply, my vote goes to the Mexican band. (Not that it makes any difference to the result... At least in that regard I can avoid the guilt.)
Loved hearing your take on this one, guys. Until next time! (And I promise I'll be on time... not just for posting my Battle but also for visiting yours. Missed too many this time.)
To close, I leave you with Bachata en Fukuoka, from Mr. Guerra's 2010 album 'A Son de Guerra' ("To The Beat of War", literally, though it's a wordplay on his name).
I'm not sure how popular bachata is in your corner of the woods, so in case you have no idea what it is, let me tell you it's a musical form originally from Dominican Republic (and still mostly popular there), a 4/4 beat that sounds deceptively simple but is incredibly complicated to dance to. Watch these guys:
Now you have something to keep you busy over the weekend :) Have fun!
I'm back! The flu did me in for a couple of weeks, then life just... went a little wild. All's good though, and I'm happy to be back in the Battle of The Bands swing.
Got something a little different for you today. These aren't different versions of the same song, but rather different songs in similar covers. Perhaps you're familiar with the Rhythms del Mundo albums? As fundraising for Artists Project Earth, they create covers of pop songs in latin rhythms, very often with the original artists on vocals and some instruments. The first album, Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba, for instance, had none other than Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo (of Buena Vista Social Club fame) as main collaborators. The results were... well, pretty amazing, I thought. And now I'm curious to see what you think.
Instead of pairing the cover version with the original, I decided to showcase three of my favorite songs in their Latino incarnations and let you be the judge of which works best (or least worse) as an adaptation.
Ready?
First up is Coldplay, Clocks. (Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba, 2006)
The Killers with Hotel California... (Rhythms del Mundo: Classics, 2009)
And, finally, the weirdest (but good weird) cover I've ever heard of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. The fact that they kept Jimi's guitar (if not the vocals) just adds to the whole sense of unreality here. (Rhythms del Mundo: Classics, 2009)
So. What do you think? Which of these three sounds most like it was born to be Latino? Or, maybe, which one sounds least ridiculous doing the cha-cha? Let me know in the comments, and come back next Tuesday to find out how the votes played out. Also, take a hop over and visit the excellent battles being fought at these blogs, too:
It took me close to 20 years to come to this mystic land of llamas and icy peaks that hem in the land, of soft-spoken people so very proud of their Inca ancestry; of food so varied, so fine, flavor so delicate, the only thing that comes close to it is
The other reason why I fell off the face of the blogosphere there for a while is because I'm moonlighting as my own housekeeper. Our housekeeper, Nancy, went berserk.
She'd been with us for seven years. Older Colombian woman, fiftyish, very trustworthy--the kind of person we left in charge of the house and dogs when we went on vacation. Dependable, committed, good head on her shoulders. No children, but in a twenty-year-long relationship with a Dominican man. A hard worker, too. No beauty, but the work kept her in shape. She didn't seem to care either way--never saw her wear makeup, she dressed simply, comfortably, and although she dyed her hair, she often had an inch (or more) of grey roots showing.
