For Both Films: ****
Filmmakers Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine do
the incredible in Inocente, they made a bright and positive film out of
the struggles of one young homeless girl’s quest to find something in this
world to believe in. That’s not to say that Inocente doesn’t have its
fair share of drama, but despite the titular subject’s circumstances –
homelessness, being an illegal immigrant, personal struggles with her single
mother – there’s always a bright side, and the world still manages to be a
beautiful place at the end of the day.
Inocente and her family struggle. They are
not truly homeless, as Inocente points out. Homelessness does not mean you are
sleeping in an alley or a park, it might just mean that you don’t have a
permanent home. Inocente’s family is continually on the move, mostly because
they get evicted from the places they stay when Inocente’s mother, an illegal
immigrant whose work options are limited, can’t make-up the rent. Living in San
Diego, Inocente goes to school with some of the richest kids in the country,
but despite all her troubles, Inocente keeps a positive outlook, and focuses on
the thing that makes her happiest: her art.
I think rather easily Inocente could
have become a dark and depressing effort, and it’s not that the issues that
affect Inocente’s life aren’t serious, but I think the filmmakers were right in
taking the lead from their subject and trying to stay on the sunny side.
Inocente’s no naïve, pie-in-the-sky dreamer. She knows the odds are staked
against her, she knows she’s going to have to work three times as hard to get
half as far, but she’s bound and determined to make it, and make it through her
art. You cheer for her successes and you feel for her disappointments. The
documentary works exceptionally well telling its tale from Inocente’s point of
view.
Inocente is
a charming documentary that manages to prompt more than a few smiles, and given
the tough issues involved that is a surprising approach to the story. Inocente
herself, meanwhile, has a bright future ahead of her; the hero of her own story
that breaks the bounds of what’s possible as much as any of the fantastic
visions that come out of her paint brush. Inocente is a wonderful, life
affirming story.
The Quiet One, the documentary that accompanies Inocente, is another
immigrant story. This one is in Sweden
and follows six-year-old Maryam, who’s come to the northern European country
with her family of Iranian refuges. Maryam struggles to not just learn the
language and culture of her new home, but to fit in with the class of native
Swedish kids, who with their near universal blonde hair and fair complexions
make Maryam stand out all the more.
But despite the educational and cultural
differences, what struck me was that underneath it all, kids are all the same.
The other kids in the class run hot and cold with Maryam, sometimes they’re all
friends and sometimes they tease her. But after every fight, there’s a brief
period of calm where the kids are all friends again, introducing Maryam to the
strange new world of snow suits and tobogganing. After her first trip down the
hill, Maryam lays in the snow and smiles; she’s proved her metal to her
classmates, and maybe for the first time she feels more at home in this strange
new land than ever. If only it were so easy for all of us…
