Sangre de mi Sangre
0
Posted
May 22, 2008 in
Film
Christopher Zalla’s Sundance Grand Jury prizewinner finds great tragedy among the ignored. Juan (Armando Hernandez) and Pedro (Jorge Adrian Espindola) meet on a crowded shipping truck smuggling Mexican immigrants to Brooklyn. Babyfaced Juan’s escaping a violent mob whose wrath he probably deserves. Pedro, illiterate and naive, clutches a letter of introduction to the father (Jesus Ochoa) he’s never met, a dishwasher who’s spent 17 years claiming he owns the restaurant. When Juan steals the letter and poses as Diego’s son, hoping to rob the miser of the hard-earned cash he obviously isn’t spending on his slum apartment, Pedro finds himself cast into the alleys where his only ally is an addict (Paola Mendoza) not above whoring them both out for $70. Zalla’s New York is a tattered jumble of secret societies for whom the American Dream isn’t a goal, it’s a joke. But the brilliant and relentless film isn’t concerned with such freshman year insights—or even crying out the ills of the world. Zalla wants to know the point where boys become cynics, men become vultures, and the hardened become vulnerable. Though there’s opera in Juan’s scam, there’s also sour comedy and savage poetry in he and Pedro’s paralleled adventures as the Goofus and Gallant of street-smart survival. (Amy Nicholson)
Christopher Zalla’s Sundance Grand Jury prizewinner finds great tragedy among the ignored. Juan (Armando Hernandez) and Pedro (Jorge Adrian Espindola) meet on a crowded shipping truck smuggling Mexican immigrants to Brooklyn. Babyfaced Juan’s escaping a violent mob whose wrath he probably deserves. Pedro, illiterate and naive, clutches a letter of introduction to the father (Jesus Ochoa) he’s never met, a dishwasher who’s spent 17 years claiming he owns the restaurant. When Juan steals the letter and poses as Diego’s son, hoping to rob the miser of the hard-earned cash he obviously isn’t spending on his slum apartment, Pedro finds himself cast into the alleys where his only ally is an addict (Paola Mendoza) not above whoring them both out for $70. Zalla’s New York is a tattered jumble of secret societies for whom the American Dream isn’t a goal, it’s a joke. But the brilliant and relentless film isn’t concerned with such freshman year insights—or even crying out the ills of the world. Zalla wants to know the point where boys become cynics, men become vultures, and the hardened become vulnerable. Though there’s opera in Juan’s scam, there’s also sour comedy and savage poetry in he and Pedro’s paralleled adventures as the Goofus and Gallant of street-smart survival. (Amy Nicholson)
