Mountains
Mountains
Each day, coming from work ready to park his car in his driveway, as a matter of routine, Xavier Atibon Nazaire finds one of his neighbours leaving his home while speaking loudly on his cell phone. At times they exchange ‘hellos’ at other times they silently go through what appears to be this ritual that has being taking place for decades. There is something compelling about the way this casuses fantastic involvement that this pictorial activity alteration is done or even more so to cement the belief that it was indeed routine when it becomes absent. One such detail is found more than abundant in Monica Sorelle’s gently but firmly crystallizing first novel ‘Mountains’, still in a civilized culture, which evokes a felt sense of belonging in a single place too.
Xavier is quiet but will not tolerate wrongdoing, and this is why he has gotten an awkward situation where he is involved in the demolition of buildings that are going to be used for high-end housing that the residents will not live in. The deeds have been getting a bit too close to home for comfort. In the vicinity, a brand new, larger house for sale appeals to him. Is this the stage for a fresh beginning? In a subtle way, the moviemaker lets the audience know who the ideal cithers of the apartment are going to be and os no surprise they do not and even don’t sound like names like Xavier and Esperance (Breathtaking Sheila Anozier) who are working class Haitaian immigrants there.
Acquiring gossip on her way, Esperance strolls from one part of the community to another greeting people who have for quite along time been part of her and she of them. This, however, will not prevent Sorelle and cinematographer Javier Labrador Deulofeu from committing these vivid and used hills of this community onto eternal celluloid. She also participates in the most human of experiences common to all immigrants, the feeling of displacement when in one country while thinking of another that has been left behind. For Xavier, the remnant connection to Haiti is a radio program bringing the latest from his beleaguered brother isle. The body and facial language of Nazaire (who most recently has appeared in films and on television mostly in small parts) express tremendous will, sometimes bordering on stubbornness, but still retaining softness.
Sorelle’s “Mountains” can be said to be in line with ‘On the Seventh Day’, an American production about Mexican-Americans from the state of Puebla who live in New York or ‘Menashe’ shooting a Hasidic Jew father who takes care of his son in a similar manner because they all present the stories of ethnic neighborhoods functioning in the shadows of dominant American society or the opposite where life is often lived in a different language then English. These communities comprised of vibrant stories refuse to be swallowed up into an indistinct bulge of convergence – they walk some distance towards convergence but recoil back to their distinct selves nonpareil of pooling utterly. ”
While “Mountains” focuses on the internal struggles of the immigrants at hand for the most part, Sorelle finally comes to Junior (Chris Renois), their son, a very ambitious standup comic who still lives with his parents and is on a childhood path that Xavier did not wish for him. This explains some of their constant sense of displeasure with their parents’ restrictive ways and how this cuts across salivating for ‘dreams’ in the society they dwell in. The sensitive writer-director however balances the scale further by including a scene whereby Xavier is himself looked down upon by his wealthy brother-in-law who considers the former to be an under achiever for his less ambitious attitude. Being that Sorelle’s co-writer Robert Colom is Cuban might explain how honest Xavier’s Cuban boss is when he makes racist remarks towards Xavier and the other Black employee about their race, as if these attitudes are still common in Sociological Group formations although there are similarities as well.
The family start to attract attention from company vultures, who seek cheap homes, and assume the development of the area will not be geared towards the immigrants. Such images are disturbing, for it is also aimed at those who reside there to take part in their displacement. Xavier and Esperance s house warming celebration comes with its fair share of adversaries within). She brings along a friend who works with the agent and speaks to them in Creole not in a sympathetic manner as Esperance hopes, but snobbishly which makes her uncomfortable. Gradually their circles will include people whose presence is new to the place but continue acting like it has been theirs. This is how gentrification works, making previously valuable space for the lower classes into indistinguishable playgrounds for the interested higher class. It s just a mindset of community unbuilding; gung ho invasion without intention of building and supporting a community. The depth of Sorelle’s plot throughout this portrait is due that she shows these point not by lengthy speech of her characters or obvious conflicts; instead it is ever so rich in those feelings which anesthetize every person drama.
In the center of a ravaged settlement, Xavier now declares this as his own ground and its where his life is, simple, hard won and one that belongs to him and those of blood relations too. To do so, would mean to relocate yet once more, that’s to ditch one’s way of life getting everything and everyone they regard as home stripped out of them for the good of the neo-colonizers Some economic strength is feasted upon dashed hopes concealed as chances. For Xavier, just, his very existence means defiance and equally the loud noise of his people celebrating and the language oh their verbal mass does. Though bulldozers may peel walls and shatter glass, it is the intangible constriction that can never be moved about. They, in fact, cannot relocate mountains.
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- Genre: Drama, Uncategorized
- Country: United States
- Director: Monica Sorelle
- Cast: Bechir Sylvain, Atibon Nazaire, Chris Renois, Sheila Anozier, Yaniel Castillo, Karina Bonnefil, Serafin Falcon, Macc Plaise