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“Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Oh Clement, oh loving, oh sweet Virgin Mary, pray for us oh Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”
Hidden in the backseat of a car, Lupe (Ivonne Contreras) fervently prays the Hail Holy Queen as she is smuggled across the border from Mexico into the United States. She is soon reunited with her husband José (Manuel Garcia Rulfo), who left her behind to start a new life for them in America. José works all day cleaning bathrooms, while Lupe finds a job as a cook at a college fraternity house. The couple are also expecting their first child, and both eagerly look forward to starting a family. Despite their poor living conditions, Lupe puts her faith in God, trusting that He will take care of them. But when José loses his job because he is an illegal immigrant, desperation causes him to make a difficult choice.
Content
I really enjoyed this movie. It’s an interesting and well-told story, there’s some great acting, and both the beginning and ending were excellent! There were some great little touches: the crucifix on the wall and the state of Our Lady of Guadalupe in José and Lupe’s apartment; the fraternity boy’s faulty attempts at Spanish when he asks Lupe to teach him how to dance.
However, I did notice a few small logic problems. First of all, without having prior knowledge of the fact, it’s hard to tell that Lupe works in a fraternity. It may be beneficial to include a brief shot of her entering a house with the Greek letters on its front. Also, there’s the minor fact that both José and Lupe are shown using a cell phone. Those usually require credit checks – which as illegal immigrants they don’t have – and pre-paid phones are expensive. It seems more logical that in their financial state they might have a land line phone rather than a cellular one. Finally, at the end of the movie when José jumps off of the bed and falls on the floor, it’s difficult to tell exactly what is going on until later. It may be beneficial to include some extra shots of people bursting into the apartment, just to give a better sense of logic.
Visual Look
There were some really great visual elements to this movie. Firstly, in the opening scene where Lupe is smuggled into the United States, the sequence is shot in such a way that one really get the feeling of riding in a car in the middle of the night. There are steadily moving lights in the background, and the scene continues to fade in and out. There were several other great scenes throughout the film that added to this sort of a film noir feel. For instance, there is one scene where José meets a friend outside late at night. There is only a little lighting from a streetlight behind the two men that lights them in a very interesting way. And at the beginning of the scene, José lights up a cigarette and his face is momentarily lit up by the match, making for a really excellent shot. In addition, José and Lupe’s apartment is very dimly lit, making for some very interesting shadows. My only complaint about that bit, however, is that the scene itself has a very noticeable bluish tint to it. It’s hard to tell if this was done on purpose, but I think it would have looked better without such a blue tone. This can be corrected by properly white-balancing on the day, or by adding some artificial lighting.
By contrast, many of the outdoor shots appear rather washed out – sometimes even too much. In the scene directly following Lupe’s entrance into America, José and a friend are shown playing soccer in the daytime. This scene, in contrast to the previous one, seems washed out, however it’s actually a very beautiful-looking scene. The contrast in the scene is very high and the colors seem over-saturated, which I think helps to lend itself to the feeling of hope that these characters have for their new life together in the United States.
There were several other scenes, however, where the washout was just too much. When José is fired by his boss, Samantha, the sunlight behind her head is far too bright. And later on when Lupe is teaching one of the frat boys to dance, there is also significant washout from a window in the building. This could be fixed by putting neutral density gels on the windows, or perhaps by shooting in a different location. Though the footage can be adjusted in post production, one will run the risk of making it too dark, in which case it will not fit with the rest of the footage. Unfortunately, the best way to fix such scenes is to just re-shoot them in a different location.
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