HOSTILE BORDER CALLS TRUMP’S BLUFF
What would happen if millions of Mexicans were forced to return to their country of origin, though they speak little or no Spanish? That’s the question soon posed in Hostile Border, directed by Michael Dwyer. Although entirely fictional, the film focuses on 22-year-old Claudia (played by Veronica Sixtos), who was brought illegally to the United States by her mother. During the foreclosure crisis, her mother is unable to make payments, so Claudia decides to do something illegal to get the cash to make a payment before foreclosure. But when Claudia is caught for credit card fraud by the Chicago police, they refer her to immigration authorities. An illegal alien who has committed a felony, she is deported and makes her way to the home of her father and grandmother, promising to return. Her father, Andrés (Julio Cesar Cedillo), owns a cattle ranch near the border. But one of his workers, Arturo (Jorge Jiménez), has ties with local smugglers, notably Ricky (Roberto Urbina), an American citizen who not only uses the ranch territory for his illegal business but also to forces sex upon Claudia. Derogatorily called a pocha (a term meaning over-ripe fruits or vegetables that are usually discarded), Claudia is plunged into the complexity of trying to survive in a corrupt law enforcement environment. When the film ends, the question originally posed has to be rephrased, “How many already deported are adding to the crime problem at the border?” Although deportations have increased to almost 400,000 per year, and violent crime has increased on the Mexican side during the same years, there is no sign of decrease on the American side of the border. MH
FRANCOFONIA EXPLAINS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WAR AND THE LOUVRE
A documentary with live stand-ins and film footage, Francofonia provides film footage of the Nazi takeover of Paris but also creates a film with story and action. Directed and voiced by Aleksandr Sokurov, the timeline jumps back and forth, creating some suspense about what will be portrayed next. After showing the Nazis taking control of Paris and the Louvre, the founding of the Louvre is explained as a palace turned into a museum to house artists and later the repository for art looted from Napoleonic and other conquests. Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich (played by Benjamin Utzerath), the Nazi in charge of the Louvre, however, is dedicated to protecting art from Hitler, who orders the collection to be shipped to Germany and then fires him as Paris is about to be liberated for not doing so. But even before the Nazis arrive, the art had been relocated to secret chateaux throughout the countryside. The narrator is Russian, not French, and he contrasts France’s “alliance” with Nazi Germany with Russia’s determination to defeat the Nazis, even when Leningrad—from which the art of the Hermitage was also relocated as a precaution—is under siege. But of course the director also tried to recount 300 years of Russian history by visiting the Hermitage in his film Russian Ark (2013). Francofonia rambles in storytelling, but filmviewers learn to enjoy the rambling, which is an art. MH
ELVIS & NIXON IS ABOUT A FARCE
Thanks to the Nixon tapes, all sorts of scenes can be recreated for dramatic purposes, but director Liza Johnson had to make up the unrecorded event in Elvis & Nixon. One such scene occurred after 35-year-old Elvis Presley (played strangely by Michael Shannon) flew to Washington with a handwritten letter to deliver to the president at the White House gate, seeking accreditation as a secret narcotics agent. Elvis had a lot of local police badges, so he felt that a federal badge was needed to top off his collection. Nixon (Kevin Spacey) at first scoffed at the idea of a meeting with the entertainer despite efforts of Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) and Bud Krogh (Colin Hanks) to point out the political value. Only when they approached one of Nixon’s daughters to make the plea did he gain entry to the Oval Office on December 21, 1970. After an 30-minute odd conversation, in which an awkward Presley got what he wanted with bullshit—pretending to be a right-winger, eager to expose drug traffickers and Communists, and even lambasting the “anti-American” Beatles. Credits at the end report that Chapin and Krogh served time for their role in Watergate, but whether Presley ever ratted on fellow entertainers as drug users is not revealed. What we do know is that Special Agent Elvis used his federal agent ID to flag down motorists for speeding and to offer help at accidents. Elvis thus fooled Nixon, a joke even funnier than the film itself. MH