Tags
Language
Tags
March 2024
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
25 26 27 28 29 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 1 2 3 4 5 6

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Posted By: Someonelse
Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

¡Alambrista! (1977)
DVD9 | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 16:9 | 01:36:40 | 7,61 Gb
Audio: Spanish AC3 2.0 @ 384 Kbps | Subtitles: English
Genre: Drama | The Criterion Collection #609

Director: Robert M. Young
Stars: Domingo Ambriz, Trinidad Silva, Linda Gillen

In ¡Alambrista!, a Mexican farmworker sneaks across the border to California to make money to send to his family back home. It is a story that happens every day, told here in an uncompromising, groundbreaking work of realism from American independent filmmaker Robert M. Young. Vivid and spare where other films about illegal immigration might sentimentalize, Young’s take is equal parts intimate character study and gripping road movie, a political work that never loses sight of the complex man at its center. ¡Alambrista!, winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s inaugural Caméra d’Or in 1978, remains one of the best films ever made on this perennially relevant topic.


Once upon a time, PBS television was a frequent sponsor of documentaries and even feature films. Among the fine pictures released first on public television and now strongly in need of rediscovery is Victor Nuñez' 1984 American Playhouse production of A Flash of Green. Almost as elusive was the acclaimed 1977 PBS feature ¡Alambrista!, the first American feature to look at the migrant labor experience from the point of view of an illegal from Mexico. The word ¡Alambrista! translates as "wire jumper", or "fence jumper". An alternate American release titles is The Illegal.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

In 1976 socially progressive documentaries were seen as a way of informing the public, and not as a means to advocate a specific political solution to a problem. A work of fiction, ¡Alambrista! is so true to its subject that it might as well be a documentary. It asks us to contemplate the situation of a particular illegal migrant worker, not to agree with an opinion.

Back in 1960, the legendary Edward R. Murrow capped his broadcasting career with Harvest of Shame, a TV documentary about migrant workers. A call for justice, the show advocated for the powerless underclass that picks the nation's food. A farmer in the show states, "We used to own our slaves; now we just rent them." By 1977 activist farm worker Cesar Chavez was making national headlines, and protests at supermarkets were asking consumers not to buy grapes. ¡Alambrista! made the issue personal.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Roberto's odyssey into the mysterious Northern land is a tangle of strange situations and customs. As he does not speak English, he deals almost exclusively with farm foremen and 'worker contacts', all of which are in the business of exploiting his labor for as little money as possible. Roberto cannot tell when a garrulous old cowboy (Jerry Hardin) is just being friendly, and he does not immediately understand that the sympathetic waitress Sharon has kept him from being robbed. A simple rural Catholic, Roberto is clearly frightened when Sharon takes him to a revivalist service run by a hellfire preacher. He thinks he has the best job in the world when the pilot of a crop duster hires him to do ground spotting flag work. Roberto proudly shows off his new company overalls, but does not understand that he's been hired to circumvent the law: the pilot is soaking him in insecticide, without a face mask or any protection whatsoever.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Roberto eventually arrives at a painful. Living with the welcoming, understanding Sharon establishes him in a second family arrangement. When he learns that his father abandoned him for a new life in the United States, Roberto understands that he is taking the exact same path, and no longer believes he's doing the right thing. Roberto cannot articulate these feelings, but actor Domingo Abriz and director Robert M. Young communicate them clearly and directly.

Although every scene in ¡Alambrista! has the ring of truth, its most indelible moment is the finale at the border. As he's being ushered back into Mexico, Roberto witnesses a Mexican woman (Lily Álvarez) giving birth to a baby right out in public, with only the help of a couple of passers-by. At first the spectacle of the woman clutching a pole and grimacing in pain seems an ultimate degradation. But when the baby is born, she laughs and cries and calls out her victory. The pole she is gripping holds the border kiosk's American flag; her boy has been born in the United States. He will have papers allowing him the freedom to cross the frontier whenever he wants.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Although he progressed to more conventional feature films, writer-director Robert M. Young approached ¡Alambrista! through documentary work, including a number of National Geographic Specials. He also co-wrote and photographed Michael Roemer's impressive 1964 feature Nothing But a Man, starring Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln as young marrieds trying to live a dignified life in the South. Young's hand-held camerawork in ¡Alambrista! is simply remarkable. The camera glides with Roberto as he walks, and, as young explains, "enters the character's personal space, staying up close but always showing the full reality of every location." We fully believe that actor Domingo Abriz is doing real backbreaking work. Young's filming strategy "invades" reality, turning documentary subjects into active participants. Playing a pair of drunks, actors Julius Harris and Edward James Olmos taunt a pre-dawn group of laborers waiting at a pick-up point. Filming the entire confrontation, Young gets authentic reactions from the workers, who are unaware that the drunks are not real. The scene has an authenticity that money can't buy.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

The small film crew ranged for ten weeks all over the American Southwest. With only $200,000 to spend, director Young and his producer Michael Hausman made on the spot deals to shoot farmers' fields during real harvests. They also solicited cooperation from State Police and even the INS. Real police and border patrolmen perform on screen. Barriers since erected to such informal shooting would make ¡Alambrista! much more difficult today. Corporations, private landowners and government agencies are now obsessed by security and image control, and are completely de-incentivized against cooperating with filmmakers. The "reality" that filmmakers would like to document, is now privately controlled or government-regulated.
Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Like recently revived indie landmarks The Exiles and Killer of Sheep, Robert M. Young’s immigration story, Alambrista, is a milestone in socio-political independent American cinema - a powerful salt-of-the-earth journey told with remarkable honesty and integrity. Shot in 16mm with a unique verite aesthetic, at the time it was too didactic to become a hit like Easy Rider. Today its claim to fame is being the first-ever recipient of the Cannes Camera D’Or for Best First Feature. Now it's available in a wonderfully packaged and crisp-as-possible-looking Blu-ray transfer dutifully annointed by the arbiters of classic cinema, The Criterion Collection.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Gregory Nava’s El Norte (also Criterion) was a landmark film, but Young beat Nava by five years in telling the story of Mexican immigants making a living illegally in the United States. With the techniques learned from Young’s documentary background, Alambrista follows the journey of Roberto, a Mexican husband and new father who ventures across the border like thousands of others each year to make a living for his family in the most treacherous of lifesyles.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Young’s mobile camera, shooting wonderfully grainy 16mm film, follows Roberto on a roadtrip of sorts as we meet the men and women along the way who aid in his journey. Across the border in California Roberto is aided by a cocky and confident Joe, who shows him the ropes of being an Alambrista (meaning an ‘Illegal’), such as ordering breakfast in a diner or train-hopping or making oneself look American. Young mixes his pathos with light humour and nimble, suspenseful action scenes. His ability to place his lightweight camera virtually anywhere he pleases enables him to shoot on trains, in nightclubs and other scenes with overachieving production value.

Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

The film finds its emotional core when Roberto develops an unlikely romantic relationship with a local naïve diner waitress/single mother charmed by Roberto’s sensitivity and blind innocence. Young plays out this relationship wonderfully, at first passing it off as a means for Roberto to survive without disrespecting his abandoned family back home. But the relationship lasts longer than expected, eventually forcing Roberto to confront his immoral behaviour when he realizes he’s become a mirror of his own absent father.

Thus, Alambrista becomes more than just a slice of life or a documented aspect of American culture. It's a beautifully rendered and deceptive character study, brilliantly told.
Alambrista! (1977) [The Criterion Collection #609] [ReUp]

Special Features:
- New high-definition digital restoration
- New audio commentary featuring director Robert M. Young and coproducer Michael Hausman (in English)
- New interview with actor Edward James Olmos
- Children of the Fields (1973), a short documentary by Young, accompanied by a new interview with the director
- Trailer

All Credits goes to Original uploader.

No More Mirrors, Please.



697405173D84F58DCA90DA3EB7CA430D *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part01.rar
E0E16ED977FB4D620B19E6D36481286B *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part02.rar
1784B93A52A4F16740B609FA6A076DA1 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part03.rar
BADFE599C1A20B4054DDB0BB22B891C2 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part04.rar
377F48EC2865C5EEA42C31A32DCFC5A9 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part05.rar
F86A2082CFF5F7D65C08232958A07CEB *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part06.rar
6FBDF49BD6D85BD9D15E0F706F2C10A4 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part07.rar
F5C479D85FEC23292322DC61AF81BF63 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part08.rar
ED93A0332F0DEDF963B2917156ABEACC *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part09.rar
95E1060594EB95F53AE2DDED026AF211 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part10.rar
299D45F1F38C8378DC582CE51B5D028B *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part11.rar
C7AB0DBC667BC3BDBD58BC4E623CBE67 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part12.rar
C802C6404810557888CF3E5FEAEA3E29 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part13.rar
BCE1AB53437AD393F9C65C218AFA932F *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part14.rar
E0090F9AA11F7FB3DF544A283F4B7E54 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part15.rar
74878AA4B9279E764E96ED5D67DAB093 *Crit609.avaxhome.ru.part16.rar
Download:


pass: www.AvaxHome.ru

Interchangable links.