Karan Gill Groups : Watch Cesar Chavez Online Movie
03-26-2014, 04:02 PM
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Karan Gill Groups : Watch Cesar Chavez Online Movie
Click Here To Watch Cesar Chavez Online
An intermittently compelling overview of a movement, but only a cursory portrait of a man, “Cesar Chavez,” directed by Diego Luna and premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this week, is a well-intentioned, respectable and respectful biopic. But the conservative format of the film, that never goes beyond the kind of paint-by-numbers approach that stultifies so many entries in this genre, was a disappointment, as Luna’s first directorial feature, the small-scale but affectingly odd “Abel” promised better things to come, and at the very least, showed that Luna had a knack for creating characters who were lovable as much for their flaws as for their strengths. But the Chavez we get here has no flaws, unless his choice to nobly sacrifice time with his family on the altar of a higher cause is a flaw. And of course it’s not. Chavez was a true hero, spearheading the campaign to extend union rights to the exploited migrant worker class in 1960s California, and from there to the whole nation. But without the context of his inner struggle, the personal dragons that he must have had to slay in order be the shining knight for an unrepresented minority, all we get is heroism, and heroism of itself does not make for a particularly interesting tale.
It’s also a factor of the slice of the story that the film chooses to tell. While we’re advocates of narrowing the focus of biopics rather than covering every significant incident in a subject’s life from cradle to grave, Luna chooses an entry point well after Chavez has already become an activist, with a scant line or two devoted to how he got there (in a kind of fake documentary segment at the start, to which the film never returns). And so we begin with his decision to uproot his family and move to California, the better to relate to the workers on the ground, which would make sense if the film’s remit were solely to cover the California campaign for migrant worker rights. But the title suggests otherwise, and we feel the lack of background in a kind of blankness around the character of Chavez, whom even the usually fantastic Michael Pena struggles to invest with any interiority—this is a superhero tale in which we do not know the origin story.
And so, Cesar Chavez packs his wife Helen (America Ferrera) and seven children off to Delano, California to live among the migrant workers who pick grapes for the county’s vineyards. Along with his similarly committed colleague Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawson), he agitates in the community, setting up a credit union and trying to educate the worker population as to the rights they should be claiming, eventually calling a strike. The strike, which lasts five years and includes a 300-mile march to Sacramento, is subsequently particularly targeted at one wine manufacturer (whose owner is played by Julian Sands—he’s had an odd career, hasn’t he?) and after they inevitably cave, the union focuses their attention on the film’s Big Bad viticulturist, Bogdnaovitch (John Malkovich).
An intermittently compelling overview of a movement, but only a cursory portrait of a man, “Cesar Chavez,” directed by Diego Luna and premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival this week, is a well-intentioned, respectable and respectful biopic. But the conservative format of the film, that never goes beyond the kind of paint-by-numbers approach that stultifies so many entries in this genre, was a disappointment, as Luna’s first directorial feature, the small-scale but affectingly odd “Abel” promised better things to come, and at the very least, showed that Luna had a knack for creating characters who were lovable as much for their flaws as for their strengths. But the Chavez we get here has no flaws, unless his choice to nobly sacrifice time with his family on the altar of a higher cause is a flaw. And of course it’s not. Chavez was a true hero, spearheading the campaign to extend union rights to the exploited migrant worker class in 1960s California, and from there to the whole nation. But without the context of his inner struggle, the personal dragons that he must have had to slay in order be the shining knight for an unrepresented minority, all we get is heroism, and heroism of itself does not make for a particularly interesting tale.
It’s also a factor of the slice of the story that the film chooses to tell. While we’re advocates of narrowing the focus of biopics rather than covering every significant incident in a subject’s life from cradle to grave, Luna chooses an entry point well after Chavez has already become an activist, with a scant line or two devoted to how he got there (in a kind of fake documentary segment at the start, to which the film never returns). And so we begin with his decision to uproot his family and move to California, the better to relate to the workers on the ground, which would make sense if the film’s remit were solely to cover the California campaign for migrant worker rights. But the title suggests otherwise, and we feel the lack of background in a kind of blankness around the character of Chavez, whom even the usually fantastic Michael Pena struggles to invest with any interiority—this is a superhero tale in which we do not know the origin story.
And so, Cesar Chavez packs his wife Helen (America Ferrera) and seven children off to Delano, California to live among the migrant workers who pick grapes for the county’s vineyards. Along with his similarly committed colleague Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawson), he agitates in the community, setting up a credit union and trying to educate the worker population as to the rights they should be claiming, eventually calling a strike. The strike, which lasts five years and includes a 300-mile march to Sacramento, is subsequently particularly targeted at one wine manufacturer (whose owner is played by Julian Sands—he’s had an odd career, hasn’t he?) and after they inevitably cave, the union focuses their attention on the film’s Big Bad viticulturist, Bogdnaovitch (John Malkovich).
