4.0 out of 5 stars
There are many stories inside this story, September 21, 2010
This is an interesting little movie. On the surface it seems like a simple story of a rebellious girl, America, born in Argentina but raised in the US. At the onset we find out that her parents have died and she lives uneasily with her aunt and uncle. She is not an easy child and her uncle seems very tightly wound. Angry at America, the uncle accidentally kills the Aunt and America is twice orphaned. She is sent to live with her grandmother in Argentina.
In Argentina, America is culturally illiterate as well as functionally illiterate. Eventually she begins to adapt. It is the process of acculturation that America undergoes that is the real story of this movie. And in the process we see some of the cultural misunderstandings between the US and Argentina, perhaps even North and South America.
Her grandmother's house seems normal from the outside but is falling apart internally, as are the main characters lives, and this is also the state of Argentina's economy. In this movie the personal, specific, and the general are mirrors of each other. For example, America's grandmother has lost two daughters in the US. Hence I believe that her anti-Americanism--- she tells America that Argentina's economic problems have something to do with the US government as well as to domestic politicians, and she apparently doesn't want America to attend an American school --- is not only a political stance but one that reflects her personal life. She's very scared that she'll permanently lose her granddaughter as well.
Here are a few of the things that struck me that may not be obvious:
- the Andean music that is played when the family in the US is first seen and when America arrives at her grandmother's typical working class neighborhood somewhere, by the looks of it, in the Greater Buenos Aires area. In Argentina this music would belong in the Northwest of the country, the poorest and least developed region of the country. Despite the presence of 'folklore' in the city, this is an unusual choice. It could symbolize the impoverishment of the country as a whole because of its recent economic collapse. It could be saying something about the origin or state of the family featured. Or, it could symbolize the perception of American society that South America is a culturally undifferentiated whole, one single exotic 'other'. I believe it is all three. North and South America, and here specifically the US and Argentina, speak not only different languages but also, because of different historical perspectives and experiences, attribute different meanings to statements and actions. America, the girl, is transitioning between these realities.
- the principal of the High School that America is to attend introduces her to her classmates in an unusual way. In his introduction he seems a little inarticulate, uncomfortable perhaps, and not only wishes America luck but the whole class luck in helping America feel welcomed and adapt to her new home. The speech is a bit stilted. I believe that this is a ploy to communicate that just as America's situation is marked by luck or lack of it. So too are historical processes and communication between cultures.
When America denies being an Argentine and tells her grandmother that she is American, her grandmother answers that she is 'American' too. This is not only the cliche of Americans innocently using the name of the continent as their nationality and Latin Americans feeling excluded by it. It also represents an Argentinean foundational myth that is being lost. Argentina was part of that 'America' that immigrants from the old world came to to escape poverty and find success. The failure of that dream is rubbed in by the exclusion from being considered American. America, the girl, openly says it when she calls her grandmother's impoverished home a "Third World house without any food" (in a country that once saw itself as the breadbasket of the world, the land of fat cattle and extraordinarily fertile soil).
-At one point, near the end, America sees a person in a car that looks like someone she knew in the US. I think that this is symbolic of the fact that the two countries and North and South are not completely different from each other. There are intersections. In fact, in some ways different aspects of America as a person represent the US, Argentina, and the view that each society has about each other.
At the beginning of the movie America, the person, is very troubled, she shoplifts, has a chip on her shoulder and is socially rude. In a way she is acting like a stereotype of a Latin immigrant in the US. We see, however, that as unlikable as she seems she is not completely bad when she refuses to participate in a drinking game and makes sure her drunk friend gets home alright. At the end of the movie, she starts to gain understanding. Her old persona as an oppositional, passive/aggressive teenager with feelings of entitlement are impossible to maintain in her new environment and circumstance.
Eventually she finds out that she can't go to the American school which she had initially wanted to do because it would be easier for her. It is too expensive. Perhaps this is the real reason her grandmother doesn't want her to attend that school. And no school in her new country is going to baby her. She has to fulfill her end of an agreement to be permitted in school at all. She has to pull her weight, even perhaps working as we see when she finds out about a secret her grandmother is keeping. As the movie progresses you see America becoming more helpful and resourceful. As she begins to both adapt and integrate her cultural heritages, she begins to become more fully herself.
The movie isn't terribly deep but it hints at many things. Perhaps it takes some knowledge of 'the other' to get it. Otherwise, it's still a decent story, not a masterpiece- more like an after school special.
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