"There strength is in our numbers" - César Chávez

 This year’s Berlinale showed César Chávez, the four-year endeavor by Mexican production company Canana, directed by one of its founders, actor Diego Luna.  The screening took place in the Special Gala section, showcasing recent films for which a spot was not found in the competition or in the edgier Panorama or Forum.   However, I caught one of the pre-release screenings of the film at U.C.L.A on March 7, in an event organized by the aptly named César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies, with the support of other campus institutions and groups.  It was a well-attended event; the 300-seat James Bridges theater, in the Film and Television Department, could not accommodate the multitude of young people waiting outside.

With Diego Luna in attendance, as well producer Pablo Cruz and Arturo Rodríguez, the current president of the United Farm Works, the union César Chávez and other labor leaders founded in 1962.  The event mixed celebrity and labor politics in an interesting way: at the end of the screening and Q&A, the young students, mostly Hispanic, left both informed about a figure they see on a pantheon, from afar, and with a serviceable understanding of labor politics.  Overall, it seemed to me, they took home the notion of a struggle for human dignity – and one, for this first generation Americans of Mexican and Central American parents - not far from their family experience.

I was very moved by this film, that traces eight key years in the life of Chávez and his collaborators, from 1962 to1970, as labor organizers in the California Central Valley (with the northern Mexican state of Sonora standing for the fields of Delano, California; hats to the set and costume designers for the period look). Against all odds, they succeed after years of struggles, including strikes and boycotts, in bringing the growers to the negotiating table; most importantly, they make the plight of migrant workers a topic in the national conversation.

Before the screening, what most intrigued me were the negotiations – historical, cultural, linguistic, religious – that the Mexican producing team must have had with itself, the U.S. screenwriters who shaped the project as a classical Hollywood narrative, and the realities of the box-office.  Among the various issues on the table, the fact that César Chávez is an American, not a Mexican figure, and yet the film had no studio financial backing; the language spoken in the film is 90% English; the target market, international; and the fact that it had a relatively modest budget of $10 million, provided by various Mexican and foreign investors.

After the screening was over, three things came into sharper focus:  how warmly Mexican this film is in its portrayal of family and community; how American (as in Hollywood American) in making a father/son relationship its dramatic linchpin; and what a beautiful case of the Catholic imagination informing a work of popular culture.   Ideas intrinsic to the Catholic worldview, like mediation, sacramentality and communion are embedded in the narrative and visual fabric of this César Chávez.  Understandably so, given the subject matter and the historical record, but not to be taken for granted. The recent Philomena about the actions of Irish nuns could be an interesting study in contrast, since Stephen Frears has acknowledged his anti-Catholic stance in dealing with a Catholic story.

The dangers of hagiography are quite skillfully skirted, in large part by the terrific performances of Michael Peña, who has the physique du role as Chávez, father of 8 young children, yet pulled away by the demands of his job; America Ferrrera as his no nonsense wife; Rosario Dawson as her legendary strong-willed collaborator Dolores Huerta.  The story moves back and forth between the public and private personas of Chávez, making him a flesh-and-blood hero, and also a Christ-like mediator with the unflinching mission, like Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, of fighting for the little people. 

The encounter in 1966 between Chávez and Robert Kennedy (Jack Holmes), then senator in a fact-finding agricultural mission in California, is one of the emotional peaks of the film, and one made to carry explicitly its overarching theme: the value of each person, and the dignity of manual work.  In this vein, the 1960 Edward Morrow’s heart-breaking television documentary, Harvest of Shame, that makes an appearance in my documentary class each semester, and the recent Ethel, Rory Kennedy’s valentine to her parents, make moving companions to César Chávez.

John Malkovich, as the self-made grape grower Bogdanovitch (speaking decent Spanish on screen) makes a strong presence as Chávez’ antagonist.  (He is listed as one of the picture’s producers.)  His nuanced character is a notable contrast to the other cartoonish meanies in the film – courtesy of crosscutting editing and the use of television news, Nixon manages to become an archenemy of the people.

For Hispanics, and those sensitive to the Mexican religious traditions of the simple folks, the warm treatment of Catholic iconography is a delight: the Virgen de Guadalupe, first and foremost, the quiet presence of priests, the celebrations of the mass, the pilgrimages. In other words, the fervor with which the teachings of the Gospel translate into action. 

If someone could get Pope Francis to see the film, I have no doubt that he would note that it is a knockout tool for spreading the good news that we are all children of God.  What an endorsement that would be!