Gregory Nava’s El Norte has come to be regarded as the definitive portrait of the experience of undocumented Latin-American workers in the United States. Released in 1983, Nava’s film has lost none of its lyrical and thematic power as it follows two Mayan Indian teenagers, brother and sister, whose dreams of a better life in America belie the fact they are simply trading one form of dehumanization for another. The film’s direction and script — co-written by Nava and Anna Thomas — are spare yet purposeful. At times, Nava and Thomas’s work feels a bit clumsy with its jabs at broad cultural stereotypes (fatuous gringo employers, vulgar Mexicans, etc.) and liberal dips into melodrama, but El Norte is also lyrically eloquent, steeped in dreams and visual metaphors that allude to a portentous future for its protagonists.
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El Norte
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