Murray State's Cinema International program presents the 2019 Mexican film, Los Lobos, this week. Tracy Ross speaks to Cintia Segovia, assistant professor of photography and new media, and Ben Post, assistant professor of Spanish, about the film.
From the MSU Cinema International website:
"This moving autobiographical film Los Lobos is a coming-of-age story about migrant life through the prism of its most innocent figures: children, i.e., brothers Max and Leo who, together with their mother Lucia, have just crossed the border from Mexico into the United States in search of a better life.
Life is not easy. Trapped in their apartment while mom's at work, the kids build an imaginary universe around mom's promise of a land of dreams: Disneyland. Kishi Leopo's film is unique. Told with authenticity and interesting cinematic techniques mixed with fiction and playful animation, the film blossoms into a marvelous adventure story as two brothers gather the courage to venture into the strange new world just outside their tiny apartment door."
Most of the film takes place within the confines of Lucia and her kids' one-bedroom apartment, which Post says "makes the moments you see outside the apartment more meaningful and the conclusion more interesting."
Segovia adds that the film directly debunks the incorrect narration that immigrants, particularly from Mexico, come to the US to steal jobs. "This is a hard-working woman that has two children and doesn't have anyone else in the world and is trying to make ends meet. As an immigrant myself, I can see that we are all here looking for our American dream. For these kids, it was Disney. For the mom, it was just to survive and work as hard as she can to get her family to be in a better place than the conditions that she grew up in."
"For me, there's a broader message of humanizing—in the best sense of the word—the subjects of the film. But there's also this attempt to tell a different kind of immigration story," Post says. "It doesn't show us the crossing as this heroic or tragic event. It's just really focusing on what happens afterward, how a new life is created. What are gains and losses? For me, that's what I loved most about it—a different angle of the immigration story being explored."
Another element Los Lobos explores is the universal theme of immigrant neighborhoods "where there is a lot of bad things happening," Segovia explains. "There are a lot of racial groups that have different struggles, and they all meet in this place. So, it's very difficult for these kids that don't speak any English to understand what is happening. But at the same time, there's this universality of, how can you be happy with what you have? Is money everything for an immigrant when you have all that pressure to be seen as successful?"
Murray State's Cinema International presents Los Lobos on Thursday, March 31st, and Saturday, April 2nd. Both showtimes are at 7:30 pm and take place on the third floor of the Curris Center.
For more information on the MSU Cinema International program, visit its website.
