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June 22, 2007
Golden Door
(out of four)
Virtually everything Americans know about Ellis Island they've learned from the movies, and virtually all those movies were American. Golden Door offers the other side of the story, the one that ends at Ellis Island instead of beginning there. This version tells of a family of Sicilian immigrants who aren't quite sure they want to become Americans — and a country that isn't sure it wants them either.
Hollywood's favorite Ellis Island myth is the one about families whose names were changed when they became citizens. No evidence of any such practice exists, but Golden Door raises a distressing variation on the same theme, as masses of tired, poor and huddled foreigners check their cultural identities like so much unwanted baggage at the gates. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" Lady Liberty cries in her poem, "The New Colossus."
But Golden Door celebrates those peculiar Old-World idiosyncrasies, that storied pomp of ancient lands. The film's Italian title, Nuovomondo, means "New World," and its central theme is not only the crisis of immigration, but also modernization: How do families like the the Mancusos adapt to the future without losing themselves in the process? Contrast the superstitious (some might say "ignorant") peasants of the opening scenes with the naturalized new citizens seen at the end and ask yourself, what have these characters gained? What have they given up?
There's the lonely patriarch, Salvatore (Vincenzo Amato), aching to create opportunity for his two sons, one handsome and clever, the other slow-witted, deaf and mute. Joke postcards from America depict chickens the size of wheelbarrows and money growing on trees, fantasies the naive Mancusos accept at face value. But Salvatore's mother is skeptical and clings to her centuries-old mysticism.
Director Emanuele Crialese (Respiro) passes no judgments, capturing the mundane and miraculous alike. He selects his cast for their soulful eyes and fills their rough voyage with generous doses of magical realism. En route, the Mancuso clan swells to include a wayward Englishwoman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) traveling all alone; she has already divorced her past, reinventing herself as the dignified society lady she hopes to become.
Not everyone will be accepted at Ellis Island, but the tragedy is bittersweet. We know what will become of those who blend in and Americanize; in one unforgettable scene after another, Golden Door reveals how much they left behind.
[as featured in The Miami Herald]
Posted by Peter Debruge on