Last night I went to the Lincoln Center Theater with a client, feeling slightly uneasy about seeing this film. Not that I mind subtitles, but the genre is just not my style. I like drama, action, not love stories, of any sort. That is what this film was about, Love, a bond between mother and son, that could not be separated by even a country.
The film deals with the very real issue of illegal immigrants and their struggle to have a life in America. Carlitos goes to find his mother after the death of his grandmother in Mexico. It deals with his crossing of the border and followed by his journey from El Paso to Los Angeles to his mother, and the people he meets along the way.
When Carlitos and Enrique (the man he is traveling with) find themselves working in a restaurant in Tuscon, AZ Carlitos looks up at the moon and tells the story of how his mother always told him that whenever he missed his mother just look up at the moon, because she is looking at the same moon.
When I was 5 I refused to speak, I am still very quiet, but I really refused to speak, to anyone, except my mother and grandmother. As a result of this, when I was away from my mother and grandmother I was never happy. I went to school and my grandmother always told me “whenever you miss me, wrap your hands around your body as if you are hugging yourself, because I will feel it too” This was something I did my entire life, even to this day, now that she is deceased, I hug myself, and know she feels it wherever she is.
I know that this isn’t what the movie is about, but it really was about love, about the unconditional love of this mother and the sacrifice she made of leaving her child for 4 years so he could have a better life, and it took this incredible journey of a 9 year old boy to realize this love.
I strongly recommend this film.
