Search - La Tragedia de Macario on DVD

A political controversy made human

Daniel B. Clendenin | www.journeywithjesus.net | 04/23/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Directed and written by Pablo Véliz, this film succeeds not because it is an excellent film, but because it does a sufficient job in humanizing an important political and ethical issue of our day-- illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States. Macario is an illiterate laborer who loses his job when the farmer who employees him sells his land and fires all his workers. He's an eminently likable character, as is his lovely wife, and together they are tired of starvation wages. When by fate Macario comes into enough money, he and his friend Felipe decide to cross the border into San Antonio. They pay a "coyote" to take them across, but when they show up for the trip he herds a dozen of them into a locked and unventilated freight car. Tragedy awaits these passengers, the coyote, and even the Mexican farmer who sold his land. Based upon a true story. In Spanish with English subtitles."

Tragedy as History

Amos Lassen | Little Rock, Arkansas | 10/14/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"La Tragedia de Macario

Tragedy as History

Amos Lassen

"La Tragedia de Macario" (Laguna Productions) is based on director Pablo Veliz's father attempting to enter the United States. Veliz, who is only 23, has crafted a sincere and moving film about immigration. He begins by showing us the life of Macario, his father, and his jokes, his loving and exasperated wife, their poverty, how e lost his job. This also is shown very slowly so that we have a feel of who the person is. By the time that Macario and his friend get to the American border, we really care what happens to him.
Veliz manages to create a very realistic picture from a news clipping about a fatal single incident in the history of Mexican immigration to the United States. Here is a moving and tender look at the hardship and the ultimate tragedy of a poor, out-of-work Mexican laborer who put everything he had into one place and lost it all when he attempted to cross the border to find work. Because this really happened, the movie is all the more real and all the more poignant. The film effectively puts a human face on the stereotype of the illegal immigrant. It looks at the oppression that drives people who work the land to flee their homes and the despair and deprivation under which they live and try to have a better life somewhere else. What really drives the film is the love that Macario has for his wife Regina and then the visitation of the Virgin Mary at the local church and on the train that Macario rides.
The movie is full of magical realism and the music that accompanies the film is brilliant. But the movie is troubling because it deals with such a real issue. This is a powerful film that must be watched in order to understand better the world in which we live.
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Masterpiece

Ted Shigematsu | San Diego, CA USA | 02/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This film touches my heart. I love everything about it; the acting, editing, the soundtrack, the script, the cinematography, even the film grain and the at times washed out, inconsistent colors (technical problems with the DVD transfer maybe). It is easy when discussing illegal immigration to think in general, abstract terms, but this film focuses existential, social, political, religious and ethical issues by involving us in the lives of a few individuals who are struggling to LIVE. It is a beautiful film, a piece of art. Everytime I watch this film my eyes fill with tears."

The face of an immigrant!

Rizzo | Denver, CO | 09/03/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's no secret what the tragedy for Macario will be. We know something terrible will happen and why, what we are not familiar with is the journey to that destiny. Macario is the face of hundreds of immigrants from Central America who have only wanted to make better for their families when the work is no longer available in their country. The immigrants are not just names in the local papers, they are real people, humans with problems, dreams and hopes and a desire to earn for their families.

Director Pablo Velez was 23 with a need to make a film to tell the story that so many other people in his life were touched by some tragedy of those who wanted to cross the border, to work for a living, to provide for their families.

What Velez has done is draw upon the human side of immigrants, not the gory, he not the dramatic, nor the violent nor criminal. He shows us the face of Macario, a young man with a wife who already doesn't have enough for a dinner with meat. But we see him with great anxiety, trepidation enough to pray in the church before he makes that trip knowing he could not come back. With the slower pace of the film, the viewer has time to feel the fear for him.

You will hear some wonderful Mexican music, and here, with subtitles, it is an extension of interpreting the story for the viewer. Often with music in foreign film, the translation is not available, but here it is important.

According to an article in the Austin Chronicle, writer Joe O'Connell's interview with Velez states:

During early showings in San Antonio, Veliz saw grown men cry. "I never present America as Satan," he says. "This tragic event was created by two nations that call each other friends. It's not political; I'm making a human statement."

......Rizzo
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