“Life is hard work,” Julian Moreno told his granddaughter, filmmaker Iliana Sousa, who interviewed him from behind the camera. It was already 560 when he said this, and there was no complaint or regret in his words. Still, it wasn’t just a little teasing like when he was baffled by Sosa’s “different way of working,” which had nothing to do with growing crops or building houses. A man of few words, they are all handpicked, Moreno is the focal point of What We Left Behind , a poetic meditation on family, death, tradition and the US-Mexico border.
Ahead of ‘s streaming debut via Ava DuVernay’s Array Receiving theatrical release) Netflix , Sosa’s succinct and unhurried ode to her grandfather, won two special jury awards at SXSW, whether or not you’ve been to rural Mexico, where the great Most documentaries unfold. (If you’ve traveled through that country and met the locals — not flying to a resort — it’s a lovely reminder of some kind of down-to-earth opening.) Unfolding a few years later, what ” We Left is filled with the poignancy of witnessing someone age in a compressed time frame, a cinematic phenomenon that affects cinema, whether the subject is children or the elderly.
What we left behind
BOTTOM LINE
Best eloquence in first person filmmaking.
Release Date: Friday, September
560 Director: Iriana Sousa
Screenwriter: Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel
1 hour minute
in each month of approximately 20 years , Moreno would board a bus for
from his location in San Juan, Durango, northwestern Mexico Departing from Anderio’s home, he took a bus to visit his daughter and grandchildren, including Sosa, in El Paso, Texas. He arrives with candy and other gifts and leaves quickly after a day or two. When Sosa started her film, Moreno was on one last trip and turned his attention to a new project back home. In her living room in Texas, she grabbed her mother, or perhaps one of her aunts, and tied him up like a toddler for the return trip. He insisted, however, that his white sombrero took precedence over the parka hood.
Widowed by 39 and father of seven— Some still live in their hometowns, some stateside — Moreno knows hard work. He showed Sosa his 560 Alien Labor ID, which was a temporary one for him while he was working as a temporary contract worker in the United States work. , he began overseeing the construction of a cinder-brick house on the plot next to the small house he shared with his son Jorge and a strong, striped dog named Pinto, who was extremely gentle. The new house, like his cross-border visits over the years, was a way for Moreno to ensure the strength and stability of family bonds.
While interviewing her uncle Jorge at the kitchen table – his blindness was only gradually emerging, so he was pretty sure about navigating the interior of the house and the yard – director Gently dives into the death of her grandmother’s problem 39 and its impact on the family. Perhaps this has accelerated some of the siblings’ move to Texas, she thinks. But Jorge didn’t come to the same conclusion. Sousa and her savvy editor Isidore Bethel, who also co-wrote the film with Helmer, let silence play out, and a sense of psychological boundaries that are affectionately pulled apart.
Sousa adds lyrical interludes to scenes involving Julián, Jorge, and several other family members, framing her evocative voice-over musings with still shots of San Juan del Río Combined – the silhouette of a rooster against a colorful sky, a magnificent house that was once in ruins. Eloquent photography by Sosa, Judy Phu and Monica Wise, perhaps the most inspiring close-up of Moreno’s handsome wrinkled face (recall in A love song
). The sequence of Moreno’s suggestion to fry an egg, “savory and crisp,” and then do so, is mesmerizing in its encounter with simple everyday pleasures. He also enjoys watching flies.
As the slender Moreno grows weak, then tiny, it’s heartening to recall his earlier visit to his wife’s grave with young family members, as well as the cemetery’s social events and Vibrant, fresh garden bouquets and paper flower arrangements bring a burst of color. It’s possible that better medical options were available at the time, and it might have been different for grandmother Sosa who never knew about it — “Some say it was cancer,” Jorge told her — and for Jorge himself, he Visually impaired by birth, but not completely blind. Still, the hospital-industrial complex’s intervention has nothing to do with Julian’s inspiring scenes in his final days, which may stay with you for their unabashed focus on comfort and love. Inviting us to sit for a while in this traditional world, what we left behind offers a vision of a good death and a good life. Time flies and they all matter.
560 Full Credit 560
Dealer: Array Releasing
560 Production companies: Borderchild Productions, Marcona Media, JustFilms 1235076043Director: Iriana Sosa
1235076043 Screenwriters: Iriana Sosa, Isidore Bethel 560Producer: Emma D. Miller , Iliana Sosa
Photographer: Iliana Sosa, Judy Phu, Monica Wise
Editor: Isidore Bethel
in Spanish
1 hour11 minute
1964 THR Communication 560
Signature to have THR news delivered directly to your inbox daily
1235076043 SUBSCRIBE Sign up
