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Parsing the Border Enigma with Reyes by Doniphan Blair
Would-be contributor to Western Civilization in Rodrigo Reyes doc 'Purgatorio', stopped, if only temporarily, by an existing wall on the Mexi-Cali border. photo: courtesy R. Reyes
BORDERS HAVE LONG BEEN CENTRAL
to our metaphysical, as well as physical, world, with the Mexican-American iteration one of the longest and most destructive in the world.
After it was elevated to demonic dominance by Cormac McCarthy in his book “No Country For Old Men” (2005), which was masterfully made two years later by the Coen Brothers into their film of the same name, followed immediately by the pop phenom television show “Breaking Bad” (2008-13), the Mexican-American border is now taking up an absurd amount of political space, due to the misguided manipulations of one man.
Into this toxic stew steps another man, Rodrigo Reyes, Mexico City-born, So-Cal-raised, who turned away from politics (studying political science at UC San Diego) to make movies, see full interview below.
Reyes's first outing, “Purgatorio” (2012), is a nightmarish—OK, I'll say it: “DANTESQUE!”—descent into both sides of California’s southern border where, in one segue, young boys brag about weapons expertise, endless rows of corpses line a mortuary, actors re-enact the Old West and the narrator intones: “Many people believe that the devil continues to live on the border.”
In other hands: pretension; in Reyes’s, Baudelairian symbolist cinema, documentary-version.
Sliding through a scene, often by way of an achingly slow pan, the very opposite of jiggle-cam, “Purgatorio”—which was shot by Justin Chin, a West Oakland-based cinematographer, who's been doing a lot of Virtual Reality shoots of late, using a 14-lens, hydra-headed camera—digs down into the utter unvirtual reality of the border’s dirty bottom.
Rodrigo Reyes, director of the narrative 'Lupe Under the Sun' (2016) and the doc 'Purgatorio' (2012). photo: courtesy R. Reyes
What could be more archetypal—or, for that matter, anti-Trump—than two impoverished but determined, all-terrain men on their Odysseyan journey, standing on the south side of a fifteen-foot wall of vertical metal slats, meditating on its ascent, then attempting and achieving it?
Cutting to the other side of what is already an enormous, unsightly slash through a pristine desert environment, Reyes finds and interviews American nativists trying to stop them but also a good Samaritan trying to help them.
Along the way, we are carried slowly, solidly, in a manner that no news show or drama (save the above-mentioned masterpieces) can touch, into the bizarre consciousness that inhabits all borders but is ratcheted up to eleven on the Mexico-United States frontier.
While there is no point hoping the American president would view this film—its artistry would render it incomprehensible to his limited attention span, it joins the important efforts of artists on the Israel-Palestine border, or among Koreans confronted by their North-South divide, trying to investigate the difficult realities of a very hard frontier.
The film “La Mar, El Mar” by Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki (2017), currently on the festival circuit, is another poetic exploration of the region. Meanwhile Reyes, who just won a Guggenheim fellowship in March, has doubled down on this story with his new film, “Lupe Under the Sun” (2016).
Also shot by Chin, "Lupe Under the Sun" started as a another documentary, about California farm workers this time. But then the emergence of a long-hidden story from his own family inspired Reyes to switch mid-production to narrative, in this case not about the raw horror of the actual border but a secondary archetypal state: exile.
Although exile usually involves the far away, due to the insane intimacy of the Americas and its exclusionary obsessives, many suffer its burdens right here, only a few hundred or thousand miles from their homelands.
If “Purgatorio” is a turtle traipsing through a valley in the shadow of death, “Lupe” is one man on the hamster wheel of life, enduring the boredom, loneliness and repetition of overwhelming work far from family and community.
Having left friends, children, wives, these men attempt to profit by America's better economy but often fail, remitting little or falling into debt, understandable given the pittance they're paid and the drinking, whoring and gambling needed to sustain their psyches through the trauma of exile.
The sun sets on a long day for the farm worker in Rodrigo Reyes new feature 'Lupe Under the Sun'. photo: courtesy R. Reyes
Lupe, portrayed to a "T" by newcomer Danny Muratalla (no wonder, given he is a non-actor who has done migrant labor), is hardly a reprobate, however. Indeed, he rises daily before dawn for the drive to the fields where he picks the produce we consume on the cheap, returning after dark to his melancholy bachelor dive and similar meal.
Well-past middle age, Lupe does have a girlfriend, some savings, even a nice bicycle, but when he finally tries to send something home, or actually return, he finds there is no there there. Lupe is adrift in an ocean of many shoals, reefs and rocks eventually taking everything, even his bicycle.
As in “Purgatorio”, Reyes drills down to Lupe's essence, using crane shots to make him small, hand-held shots to render him fragile, and repeated shots, to document the achingly slow passage of time. Ultimately, Reyes's Bergman-like tropes turn the film from the portrait of one man to one about our shared, bi-national tragedy, an immigration policy with no rhyme, reason or morality.
But what is there to do as Trump continues to claim he will build "The Wall?"
Perhaps the journalist from Northern Mexican at the end of "Purgatorio" has a suggestion: "Should I cry with the victims or put sentimentalism aside? Sometimes you have a very crude image and you can’t show it out of respect for the family. Or respect for the readers,” he muses, until he burst out laughing, his survival technique, while the film itself cuts to a Mexican couple enjoying themselves on a dance floor.
Thus the eternal and ever-necessary effort of border art: to restore the civilization, the balance and normal egress of humans on both sides, both psychically and physically, an increased understanding of which will hopefully translate into stopping Trump’s idiotic wall and continuing our mutually-assistive progress.
A Northern Mexican kid preparing himself for a possible Cartel future with 'Purgatorio'. photo: courtesy R. Reyes
cineSOURCE: Who do you follow filmicly?
Rodrigo Reyes: Stylistically, that film just had to come out. I think every immigrant has a border inside of them. We need to navigate that border, and we need to resist it.
I worked heavily with the cinematographer, who is actually from Oakland, Justin Chin.
I know him; he lives right over here.
Yes. We worked to create the landscape as a character as important as the other characters in ['Purgatorio']. What I liked is discovering that I didn’t have to investigate this place like a journalist, I could report it as a metaphorical place.
It didn’t have to be a specific: ‘Oh, this is what is happening, in 2011, in this part of the border.’ It could be almost like a magical space that belongs to a different time. It is not tied to the politics of this moment. The film feels like it exists independent of the news.
It is very artistic. ‘Lupe’ reminds me a lot of Bergman.
Ummm.
Those are some slow pans you got going [in 'Purgatorio']. They give it a great dignity.
Yeah. The tools are simple, I guess.
These issues get politicized all the time. There is always a political spin. But what is the point of making a movie that takes so long to finish? I wanted to so something different. I wanted to leave the politics to the folks who can get an article out in a couple of weeks.
The movie never tells you where it is, never gives you any hard statistics—all those things don’t really matter. You should feel like you are dreaming in this place; you should feel the frustration of this border, that is so painful but no one really has a good answer.
I have come to the conclusion—forget about Trump—that the problems are unavoidable. If you have Brazil next to Bolivia, you have this economic differential.
Right.
I have been to Mexico many times, starting in 1976, and I remember hearing a saying: ‘So far from god, so close to the United States.’ I kept asking, ‘What does that mean? Are they still talking about the Mexican-American War?' [1846-48].
Then I finally understood: the ‘So far from god’ is the corrupt part, and the ‘so close to the United States’ is the differential. If one economy is at this level and the other one higher, there is going to be a black market; there are going to be warlords.
Danny Muratalla, star of 'Lupe Under the Sun' with Reyes at the SF Indie Fest in February. photo: D. Blair
You will see that any where. You see that on the Pakistan-India border. Although, it is very extreme with cocaine.
Right. Or even one neighborhood to the next, even here in San Francisco.
Borders always bring out things about human beings that are not so nice. We mistreat people because they come from a certain part of that land. They are on that ‘other’ side. They are treated and classified differently.
Like those two guys in the film who are waiting to 'enter' [scanning the wall for a weak spot]. They are just two guys trying to survive.
Then you cut to the guy who wants to keep them out. Then you have the pastor who wants to give them water.
Yeah, yeah.
The desperation of these people. But now they are not even coming that much, since the economy fell.
We build these borders because we live in our minds. We don’t live in the real, natural world; we live in the world we invented; we need these borders, so we can make sense of other people.
It is really psychological—the numbers aren’t there. There are more people being sent back to Mexico than are coming in. And there are jobs for these people here [in the US]: they do things; they clean things; they cook things.
The Texan economy is going to be destroyed: something like 50% of all construction workers are undocumented. If they drop by 10%, construction will drop by 5%.
It doesn’t matter. Once you have the story, ‘You are being invaded,’ that is a very powerful story. It is a story of this dark stranger coming and they going to attack your home.
It is like the whole need to have a gun at home in case you get robbed. But home invasions are rare.
Unless you are Vietnamese. Ironically, El Paso is a very safe city while Juarez, just across the border, is insane.
We have a need to classify people. We have a need to pretend that we are living in this world of good guys versus bad guys. You see that a lot more now than when the film came out.
Danny Muratalla in a moment from 'Lupe Under the Sun'. photo: courtesy R. Reyes
It is very prescient film. When we first met, I wasn’t sure but I kept thinking, ‘I have go with this story.’
We need more films on the subject. I am interested in the Palestinian thing, where we also need more stories, a Palestinian-Israeli Romeo and Juliet.
There was a moment when I thought, ‘Why don’t we [film] borders around the world?’ The first one I came up with was the massive walls they built around Palestine.
But I didn’t want to go over there and do a story about a culture I am not immediately familiar with. I know so much about Mexican-American culture. To go to a culture you only know through research, the balance would be too different.
It just shows: all over the world, people are going through the effects of arbitrary barriers—how they destroy communities and force people into categories.
The Palestinians are even more tricky, right? There are actually wars that are very recent.
There it is very complicated; here, this used to be Mexico. But I think it is a good thing it became part of the United States. I am sure a lot of the old Latino families are happier here than in Sonora or Chihuahua.
Economically, yes.
In practical terms, you were moseying around with a very small crew? Did you have a fixer?
We had different fixers in different parts, like local artists or journalists. It was just a three-man crew, most of the time, the cinematographer, Justin, and a colleague who did sound, from Tijuana.
The three of us—we really worked together, a constant dialogue. I wasn’t like the director. It was: ‘What do you guys think, we should do?’, getting them involved, especially finding the visual language to tell the story.
The sound guy was the only other guy on the crew who was bilingual, so he became like my line producer. He helped me strategize a lot of things.
Documentaries need to loosen up. A lot of times, you come with a ‘This is how we do things’ attitude. It doesn’t work because you end up repeating the same story with a mainstream story line. We needed to wander, to find things. You recall the dog [catcher] scene?
Yes, heartbreaking.
A lot of your stuff is tied off on sticks, although it seems it is easier to come in and grab some hand held. The way you are doing it, you are putting down a tripod and getting a solid shot. Do you always ask permission?
Muratalla, star of 'Lupe', enjoyed his first visit to San Francisco and, unlike his character, is very upbeat. photo: D. Blair
In the US, you have ask first and clear everything; in Mexico, it is much more organic.
The reason for the sticks, it changes the way you see things. Watching something that feels like a documentary, that is moving around all the time, kind of gives you the opportunity to slip out of that scene.
When it is fixed [on a tripod], it feels kind of rigid. It is hard to look away; it makes it very disturbing; it makes it feel more like a dream or a different type of film.
We are so conditioned to see documentary as hand-held, blurry camera, badly shot, sometimes peoples' heads are cut off [by the framing]. To make it more composed, really grabs people.
That seems to be your style. You did that beautifully in 'Lupe' as well. And now you are starting another film?
I am going to scout in Mexico in a couple of weeks, for a film about a friend of mine who is doing life in prison. He is in prison for life and he only became my friend after his sentence.
It is still too early to share more details, but I am looking forward to the results.
As I plan to shoot, I am thinking, 'How do you make the documentary elements have something special, so it doesn’t feel like you are looking at your normal ‘Oh, we are just going to follow these characters around.'
No, let's film something that is interesting!
That is what I learned with ‘Purgatorio’. There is another layer to reality that, as a filmmaker, you can create. And it is really rewarding to do that. When you imagine the border as a purgatory, it is a lot more interesting.
The same thing with Lupe. There is not a lot of context and he becomes this kind of archetype for old age, right?
And exile, it is a very sad story. It was great to see [Danny Muratalla] at the show at the Indie Fest [in February].
He’s still talking about that. He was very happy about coming to San Francisco.
Yeah! It is so interesting about non-actors. Their expectations are so different from an actor. They don’t know how to manage fame the way like, I don’t know, Robert de Niro does, right?
You have a sort of responsibility. You can't just say, 'Off to the next film, see you when I see you.'
So Danny and his son and his grandchildren came to that screening in San Francisco—the actor's name is Danny and his son is Danny and his grandson is also Danny—that was part of the experience of the film.
I have a responsibility to provide that to Danny and continue that dialogue and exploration. Imagine: he had never come to San Francisco before.
Never?
No. And he is only two hours away. You see what I mean?
It is a very different relationship. It is very valuable for him to have his own connection to the world through the film, to benefit from the film in ways that other actors don’t even think about, you know?
Right, that is beautiful. So this just the second film you have made—any shorts? And did you go to film school.
Chris Meltzer, filmmaker and host of SF Indie (lft) with actor Danny Muratalla and director Rodrigo Reyes. photo: D. Blair
I have made other films before but they just weren’t that successful in terms of festivals. They were kind of like a learning experience. I didn’t go to film school but I did take some film history classes—I'm a poly-sci major from UC San Diego.
But as soon as I got my degree, I realized I didn’t want to work in that. I bought a camera and started shooting.
Justin shot 'Lupe' on the Red [camera, which he owns]?
Yes. We shot on the Red with some Canon lenses from the Canon Filmmaker Award. Canon gave us an award through Film Independent down in LA.
So you don’t have a filmmaker who inspired that very slow style?
No, you have a bunch of references you develop but they all go out the window once you are actually shooting and facing the conditions of the actual shoot.
You can enjoy a lot of different films but the solutions to your film will be different.
Like in 'Lupe'’s case, the camera was never on sticks, it was always moving—moving slightly. A fixed but moving feeling—that was something that came out of the process.
Justin shot 'Lupe', too. We discussed it a lot: how to create the aesthetic we needed, the aesthetic of loneliness.
It is a great follow up to ‘Purgatorio’; they work very well together. They are very artistic, bringing the art to bear on what is often considered just a news story.
It is a little slow and may put off some people. But if your third film continues the themes, it is going to a great set of films, a slow look at a fast thing.
Right.
They are both really beautiful and sad films, very timely. Borders, man, they always have prostitution, drugs, violence. Oakland used to be like that.
It has got an underbelly history, right?
Well, it's the poor city, the other side of the tracks, where the prostitution, drugs, gambling always happens.
What generated the interest in making 'Lupe', switching from doc to narrative film?
The film ['Lupe'] actually started as a documentary and evolved organically into a feature. The original idea focused on the peach harvest and the workers who toil through the hot California sun during the intense summer months.
However, before I started shooting, I discovered a story about my grandfather that changed the entire film.
I knew that, many years ago, grandpa had been a migrant worker, coming and going between California and Michoacán [Mexico] during the season every year. This was part of the official family story. But what I did not know was that at some point during this process, grandpa stopped coming back.
He went missing for many years, without giving word or notice of what he was up to. Nobody knew anything about his whereabouts. One morning, right out of the blue, he suddenly came home to Michoacán.
I was shocked to learn this story. What intrigued me the most was that grandpa never explained his absence to anyone. He passed away many years ago, so I could not ask him directly.
[At that point] I knew I could no longer make a project about the peach harvest. I had to tell my grandfather’s story.
Working quickly, I decided that I would use all of my preparation work and bring it into the new story as much as possible. The process was very organic. [But] I knew going into it, I would have to feel comfortable with walking a line between the narrative and the documentary spaces.
So, you're from Mexico?
I was raised in Mexico City and then my parents moved to San Diego. I go back and forth.
Reyes's primordial immigrant finally finds a weak spot and goes over the wall in 'Purgatorio'. photo: courtesy R. Reyes
The culture is so rich there. I love the way, when you go to Mexico City, they are looking towards Beunos Aires not up to LA, even though the filmmakers are.
All the filmmakers wish they could be in LA. They thought they could make it.
Many of them did, starting with ‘Amor Perros’ by—what’s his name—Inarritu.
Some of them made it but in Mexico there is a lot room to explore cinema as a craft—there is a lot of beautiful cinema coming out Mexico. Here, there is a push to think about your brand. That gets in the way of your creativity, sometimes.
How did you meet Danny [Muratalla]?
I found Danny through my family contacts. He had worked with my own father for many years until he retired a few years before the shoot.
Danny is unique human being. At his age, after a lifetime of working in the California fields, he was willing to jump into a completely new experience and become the lead actor in a film.
Danny wears his heart on his sleeve and I was lucky to gain his trust from our first meeting. That bond is what made the film work for the character.
Was it also a guerrilla crew for 'Lupe' and, if you can say, what was the approximate budget?
'Lupe' was shot with a skeleton crew, just a handful of talented people who pushed the film forward with a lot of grit and my aunt’s home-cooking around a big dinner table.
We had to make the most of our limited resources, so we opted for a light, agile camera and made the most of ambient lighting. The result is that the film stays close to its documentary roots; it feels as if we have just stepped into Lupe’s life.
I don't like to say how much it cost.
What do you think 'Purgatorio' and 'Lupe' mean now in the age of Trump?
The world today is pulling itself apart. Immigration and borders are perhaps the biggest social dilemmas of our times. These issues confront us and cut deeply; they challenge our empathy, our humanity and our sense of justice.
They also bring out some of the darkest forces, breeding hatred and a sheer lack of rationality that makes us vulnerable to fear and thoughtless aggression.
In that sense, both of these films explore these issues and hopefully provoke. I feel very strongly that these stories about life on the margins of our world are the stories that must be heard, now more than ever.
How do you think film or art can best stand up to [Trump's] repressive policies?
I think art has to wage battle on its own terms. We cannot catch up or try to play by the rules of repression. Artists have to be themselves, as completely and boldly as possible. This is the best form of resistance.
Do you see ‘Purgatorio’ and ‘Lupe’ as a more art or intellectual film—how are they received in the community?
I have to push back against the notion that art films are somehow intellectual because it implies they cannot reach a diverse audience.
In fact, people today have a high-degree of visual literacy. Folks understand the grammar of cinema, almost intuitively. They just don’t reflect on it as an intellectual exercise. It’s only when you underscore the differences that the divisions start to impose themselves.
I have had amazing screenings of ‘Lupe’ with audiences that bring together farmworkers, blue-collar folks and immigrant families with doctors, lawyers and university professors.
It’s all about context. If a film is presented as a high-brow experience, the result is that some people will opt-out because they feel it is too complicated or too weird. But if the same film is pitched as a portrait of what goes on in your community, what happened to your grandfather, a story about immigrant family secrets—it will work and a lot more people are able to engage with it.
I would argue that these distinctions are intimidating and only help to create an artificial barrier to entry for folks who otherwise have all the tools necessary to enjoy a film.
In a sense, you are bringing together people much like a politician but around ideas, feelings.
With ‘Lupe’, for instance, there is so much that speaks to people coming from a working-class immigrant background. I would rather focus on those entry-points and let the art-house elements come one their own.
What would you say to young Latinos today wanting to get involved in media?
The only advice I can give is to take up arms and tell your stories, funny, sad, exciting, provocative, taboo—there is an entire universe out there that needs to be shared.
One of the most rewarding experiences of making this film has been seeing the reaction of young folks who have a Lupe in their own families. It is real. This is what we have lived through to be in this country.
It’s painful and difficult and, yes, it can be put on the big screen and become part of this wonderful world we call film.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker ('Our Holocaust Vacation'), who can be reached . Posted on Apr 22, 2017 - 09:07 PM