Bread and Roses

As Sam Shapiro, a labor activist who helps Hispanic janitors in an L.A. office building to form a union, Brody's blend of earnestness and mischief really livens up this well-meaning, sometimes moving, occasionally didactic Ken Loach film. Brody's beard and bedhead make him look especially cuddly; no wonder engaging heroine Pilar Padilla eventually drags him into a closet for some hot and heavy nookie! :-) (My husband also remarked that all that hair made Brody's prominent proboscis look, well, less prominent -- not that Brody's noble nose ever bothered me, thank you very much! :-).

"Bread and Roses" is an engaging film about immigrant workers' struggles against poverty, state violence, and economic exploitation. I saw "Bread and Roses" at the Denver Film Festival thinking it was going to be a dry, lecturing documentary. Instead, it was a nuanced and complex dramatic depiction of powerful and engaging characters. It is rare to find such a politically charged film that is made so effective by presenting very human characters struggling with the contradictions of everyday life. It allows us to appreciate the tough choices we all make in conditions not of our own choosing--it allows us to explore issues outside of the knee-jerk judgments of good guy/bad guy and appreciate the very human responses to often inhuman circumstances we all participate in creating. The acting is generally very good, especially for a "low budget" production, but the main character's older sister delivers a monologue on her struggles with deprivation that still chills me to the bone even though I saw it months ago. Sorry for leaving out the details, but this is one film whose details you'll want to discover for yourself.

Elpidia Carrillo has a scene in this film equal to the "...I'm the best possible Arnold Burns" self-justification speech in A THOUSAND CLOWNS. It's so real and raw it's almost hard to watch. I saw this film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, and it so beautifully delivers the drama and the realities of the Justice for Janitors campaign. Ken Loach does it again...with an American accent (ALL the Americas). Adrien Brody is Ron Leibman's NORMA RAE organizer if he were younger and less seasoned, but just as much the true believer. Pilar Padilla's Maya is all passion and youth and fun-loving troublemaker. The documentary style that Ken Loach uses is perfect for the subject.

As the daughter of hard-working Mexican immigrant parents and having been raised in one of Los Angeles' poorest barrios, I often saw the story of Rosa and Maya being played out in real life within my family and amongst my neighbors. The authenticity with which this story is told is astounding, showing a deep respect for those who in search of a way to make an honest living, subject themselves to countless humiliations and are relegated to live outside the margins of mainstream America.

Kudos to the writers!! This is the first time I have ever seen an American film in which the dialogue in Spanish was written by someone who actually speaks the language and can grasp the nuances and feeling of the language so perfectly. Richard Hicks is to be commended for casting both Elpidia Carrillo and Pilar Padilla in the roles of Rosa and Maya, respectively. They deliver their dialogue, especially in Spanish, with an emotion and passion that is rarely seen on the Hollywood silver screen. Needless to say, Bread and Roses is now on my list of must-have-films to add to my DVD library.

I don't know why but I've always had good interactions with janitors. Why should there be a reason? I respect their jobs: if a floor is shiny from having just been cleaned, I wouldn't dare stick my muddy shoes on it. Just like 'garbage men' these people's jobs consist of handling 'unwanted' stuff but unlike what Luis (Frank Davila) said, I don't think their uniform make them invisible, it is just that the world has turned so competitive and greed-driven that we all keep our chins up to get a share on the dream without caring much from the reality lying beneath us.

And it takes directors like Ken Loach to open our eyes on such realities, "Bread and Roses" -whose title derives from a poem turned into union slogan for industrial (lowly paid) workers- sheds the lights on the working conditions of janitors in Los Angeles, mostly South American immigrants who're not even acknowledged a right to unionize or get insurance. It's not about what you can do for a job but also what a job can do for you. But obviously, these people are at the bottom of the social pyramid and should value their luck for having wages, wages of fear or wages of wrath, wages anyway.

And so Loach provides a sort of behind-the-scenes look on the struggle of these unglamorous people who dance with the vacuum cleaner and empty our wastebaskets. It's not exactly a leftist tribute to the working man but a social commentary and a human study on the way they're often overlooked even by Hollywood itself. Indeed, go give me a film about maids or janitors that is not a Cinderella story. In "Bread and Roses", we look at janitors beyond their uniforms, they have kids, they have daily strugles to deal with, they have dreams too like Luis who wants to become a lawman. They are different: some are political, some don't care, it's not your monolithic group and Loach never tries to pull a Capra on his material.

The heroine is Maya (Pilar Padilla) who gets a job as a janitor from her sister Rosa (Elpidia Carilla) , both women are strong in different ways. Maya is a plucky little woman who illegally enters the territory, it's interesting that Loach teases us by not allowing the human traffickers to let her go join Rosa because she didn't give enough money. Five minutes later, she'll be back but there was one scene needed to introduce Maya as resourceful, funny and capable to survive, I won't spoil it, it's both funny and realistic, and she's pretty enough to lure any guy into it, better use the power you got. That character-establishing moment works because we do believe she can spend hours wandering around her building waiting for someone to connect to, work as a waitress and have great come-backs to some macho slurs.... then get a janitor's ob and even do an elevator prank her very first day. Such girls can get away with it.

Rosa has more years behind her, more experience, she's got a sick husband (Jack McGee) and a daughter, she could have used a line from another 2000s film "I have a family, I don't have the luxury of principles". Rosa knows it's not that the job offers enough to live, but that no job at all would just make living impossible, and when you have kids or a man who needs an operation, you'd be likely to kick any Ivy League long-haired "union" propagandist off your house. Sam Shapiro is that guy, he is introduced in a funny almost cartoonish way, trying to escape from three men, you've got to have the makings of a true con artist and in some funny twist, his methods match Maya's own resourceful nature. It's obvious from the start that a woman like Maya will be more receptive to the cause lead by Sam, both actors have great chemistry.

But it's a lost cause for Rosa, even when submitted paycheck from 1982 workers revealing that wages have decreased and right for health insurance cut out (that's the paper Sam retrieves) she refuses to hear the truth. In a way she agrees with Sam: big corporations will always win because workers depend more on their jobs than they do on workers. It's a psychological arm-wrestling and the solution doesn't come from a magic hat but for pressure, harassment and some media bait-and-switch stunts. Loach never makes the nerdy Brody a romantic Robin Hood but an overly idealistic protester ignorant of some harsh realities. In fact the other side has a convincing representative in chief of staff Perez (George Lopez) who tells workers: . "Join the union and they'll ask your papers and tax your money".

The central figure remains Rosa who has one of the greatest moments in a Loach film when she explains why she has no scruples betraying the workers, revealing to Mata that it didn't take just money to get her on the other side of the border as she had to cross her own existential border toi., something that make female worker even more subjected to a new form of slavery. The dynamics of the film operate in a way that never indulges to black vs white exposition. Loach reckons the social reality through scenes of sheer anger, constructive debates and a remarkable moment when they act as party-poopers in a little Hollywood celebration featuring some real actors like Tim Roth or Ron Perlman..

The scenes works as a subtle little jab at Hollywood, a close neighbor to Los Angeles. Now, let me pay tribute to Sasheen Littlefeather who just passed away. What Brando said about her being booed and taken off stage sums up the spirit of that scene and the whole janitor's fight: "they're ruining our fantasy with a little intrusion of reality". In "Bread and Roses", Loach allowed reality to intrude itself with bravura and gusto... mucho gusto!