La tierra de la gran promesa

Golden Door is a miniature epic, tracking a Sicilian's family emigration to the USA. It starts much too slowly, and although characters are established, it is ill thought out - particularly the dream sequences, which could have provided an added insight.Once the action moves onto the voyage, however, and Charlotte Gainsbourg's character is introduced, an interesting story emerges, and this, combined with humorous touches, are what make the film bearable. It is well directed and shot, with the other lead character, Vincenzo Amato, also impressing.

3 / 5

This review is in response to the submission wondering how factually correct the movie was...

Saw this movie last year and found it inspiring that hopeful immigrants, like my Italian grandparents who came through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century, would subject themselves to all manner of invasive inspection just to enter America.

It was certainly eye opening, since my grandparents never spoke of anything terrible while there. My grandmother was 5-years old and my grandfather 18 when they arrived.

I just returned from a trip to New York where I had the pleasure of visiting Ellis Island and the museum actually walks you through the immigration evaluation process - The filmmaker obviously did his research, right down to the medical exams and equipment, questions and puzzles. They are all there at the museum. Even the wedding pictures and the review board room -- Factually correct! Anyone who has immigrant grandparents should see this movie. Inspirational to say the least.

"Nuovomondo (2006)" (shown in the U.S. as "The Golden Door") was written and directed by Emanuele Crialese. This film is different--and, I think, better--than most movies about impoverished people who leave Europe and come to the United States.

The film begins with scenes in a poor, rural region of Sicily. We always hear that Sicily is a rocky island, but you won't really understand the implications of that phrase until you see the first half-hour of "The Golden Door."

The middle section of the film is devoted to the long voyage to the U.S. Most immigration films show us ten minutes of people in the third-class section becoming seasick, and then show us the Statue of Liberty. Not this movie--we get a sense for life below decks, and it isn't charming. (We never actually see the Statue of Liberty, either.)

Finally, the typical movie will give us another ten minutes of Ellis Island, and then the immigrants are walking through New York's Lower East Side. Not here--the Ellis Island experience occupies about one-third of the footage.

Vincenzo Amato is outstanding as Salvatore Mancuso, who is bringing his two sons and his mother to the new world. Charlotte Gainsbourg is equally good as Lucy Reed, a mysterious Englishwoman who also speaks fluent Italian.

There are some strange touches in the movie, especially the sound track with songs by Nina Simone. There must be some symbolism there, but I couldn't make sense of it.

Another reviewer has already pointed out that this film will do better viewed in a theater rather than on DVD. Still, large screen or small screen, it's worth seeking out.

So now I have a very good idea what my immigrant grandparents went through traveling by boat from Italy and through Ellis Island aka "Golden Door" in the early part of the twentieth century. Emanuel Crialese's Golden Door amply describes the primitive living circumstances that motivate these adventurers to leave home, the cramped weeks aboard a steamer, and the indignities. In fact, the director is so precise that most of the tale lumbers through the details of living and then processing at the island to the detriment of engaging story telling.

The only relief from the boredom (like the voyage) is the occasional Fellini-like impressionism: One prominently has characters swimming in milk (as in the "land of milk and honey") more than once. It could be argued that the director doesn't prepare the audience for the abrupt transitions into the formalist episodes, but I felt relief with them.

By contrast Mira Nair's recent Namesake is superior in telling an interesting story about identity and the new world, and Chaplin's Immigrant (1917) makes the boat ride a model of slapstick and the restaurant scene not only humorous but telling about the challenges immigrants inevitably face. Nobody ever said Chaplin was boring.

Charlotte Gainsbourg stands out as Lucy, a husband-seeking Brit whose literate background makes her useful, and whose role as a strong, beautiful woman allows the film to explore the prejudices against women. She is unforgettable when she and other women sit in a room awaiting the magistrate's permission to marry a man often the woman is meeting for the first time. That a woman would need a man to qualify for entry into America may not be so anachronistic given Hilary needing Bill to make her political career in the twenty first century.

Agnes Godard's cinematography is often the salvation of a scene, for instance when she catches two mountain climbers with rocks in their mouths deftly negotiating a rock-strewn hill top to arrive at a shrine. Mostly she photographs the climbers close up to keep the adventurous sense of surprise. Then she reduces them to just more rubble as she pulls back into a major bird's eye view losing them slowly just as their journey across the Atlantic will reduce them again.

It's a slow journey.

Emanuele Crialese did a fantastic job with one of those films that linger in the back of your mind for years. It was Respiro (see comments and synopsis here in IMDb).

Now, carrying the magnificent young talents he had for the first time on screen then, he takes the audience into a dark void. A literal plunge into dangerous waters. The subject is migration. In this case, from Italy to the New World (the name of the film). A big deal calling it for its American release "The Golden Door".

The story of a family that leaves everything and risks the rest -that is, their lives, for a dream.

I hate to spoil the show telling the story, so I'll dwell a bit in the work Crialese and all his team did so brilliantly.

First of all, choosing to stick to what he knows: direct sound as much as possible. This means, the whole film. The textures, the pain, the nuances of reality are always mingled with the smells, the heat or the cold, the sweat and the blood, life and death, as vibrantly as it is in real life.

The squeaks of bent metal and grinding wood, the infamous drone of the wind and the ominous sounds of big engines and ship horns are among the points that make this film so involving.

Cinematography is in the hands of a French couturier. The symbolism of light is present from the very first shot (again, almost the very first shot from Respiro) and pervades throughout the film with intimacy and a terrible sense of desperation. The subdued tones and the very gray and grim depictions of people suffering the cramped and filthy boat they sail to hope is mesmerising.

Light is used sparsely, almost to discover every character in the dark. The beauty of every shot, and every scene is accentuated by the period costumes and the perfectly selected physical features of the actors.

Again, as he usually does, Vincenzo Amato is definitely on his own. He plays the father of two sons (the same actors who were fifteen and twelve and now are nineteen and sixteen) with all the power he always conveys to his very complex characters.

Charlotte Gainsbourg is so-so. I guess she's never achieved again the perfection she reached in The Cement Garden and in her very first film: L'Effrontée.

Maybe it's just that she seems a bit awkward in her role.

The locations and sets are harsh and compelling, almost playing a character on their own.

Maybe the most remarkable character is the one played by Filippo Pucillo, the mute younger son. The contrast here with his first role is complete. Then, he played a supercharged kid that was as relentless as anything around him. Now, his character is all expression. And just that: no words at all. His eyes tell the whole story with sublime power.

Maybe this is one of those films that will not be very well received in the States. It's absolutely Italian in everything. It's so Italian that most of the time, the language is one of the many dialects that is much older than Italian itself. In the USA this film may be a bit too much for Americans because of the subject. But anyone who remembers the story of their families when they arrived in the States, will see this films with awe.

And, again, the minimalism that goes hand in hand with Crialese's ideas is back with a closing scene in the water. Only this time it goes from underwater photography to aerial.

All in all, another great and very well told story from this filmmaker that only this year (2006) has collected 6 prizes and was nominated for the Golden Lion. Not a small deed!