Even though I'm a bit of a Loach fan, I found this film did not live
up to his usual high standards. The story of LAs janitors fighting
for decent wages is told well, but I did not find all the
performances convincing. However, near the end of the film there is
a scene between the two sisters at the heart of the story which
suddenly sparks with the old Loach magic - a marvellously powerful
scene.
I agreee....that scene seemed to come out of nowhere in terms of the emotion it depicted and invoked, and in terms of the quality of acting. I didn't see that stuff in most of the rest of the picture. I thought the romance between Maya and Sam was contrived. I thought some of the acting was terrible...including that of George Lopez. I was really disappointed with this movie. While the story could have been interesting, its delivery was droll.
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I disagree about Lopez. He really reminded me of the guy who fired me!
shareHmmm I'm not convinced that was the message of the film at all. Since I thought the film was highlighting how vulnerable a position many people are forced to live in how could the message be that it is "not the circumstances in which we live" that "shape who we are"
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I rather thought the US was started by ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS who invaded and killed most of the people originally living there. (I see the post I was replying to is gone. I'm sure you can guess the nature of the contents).
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Clearly this movie talks about DISCRIMINATION which is something most people from the USA aren't familiriazed with... We see, how inmigrants are totally degraded by the USA society, even with the ones of their own kind... how the USA mafia of transporting latins to work for them is clear in this movie. Really, one of the movies that showed somewhat reality.
Remember this:
White People = Aren't discriminated
Black People = Discriminated by White People
Latin People = Discriminated by Everyone, even black people.
"Yup, started by "illegal immigrants", so to speak, just like illegal immigrants established Australia, New Zealand, Chile, etc etc. "
Let me see, you said CHILE? Are you latin? Weren't you touched by this movie? I'm not latin, but I could see the REAL message from this movie.
White People = Aren't discriminated
Those who want to obscure the struggle with ethnic differences are the ones who are aiding and maintaining the exploitation of the masses of the people: poor whites, poor blacks, browns, red Indians, poor Chinese and Japanese, and the workers at large… So in essence it is not at all a race struggle. We're rapidly educating people to this…So let me emphasize again - we believe our fight is a class struggle and not a race struggle"
If you say latin people are discriminated by everyone then you have to say black people are discriminated against by everyone. I live in a city that's considered one of the most ethnically diverse in the country, whites are also discriminated against. It's not simply one race against another.
shareIf they don't like it here move back to mexico.
shareAn chinese can go back to china, Germans to Germany, polish to Poland, Russians to Rusia, English to England, French to France... And the Siux, Cherokee and Apache can go to yellowstone...
When will idiots understand that the people who live in a country conform its citizens? When a Mexican crosses the border he is no longer Mexican and becomes a US citizen and part of the US society.
Otherwise what you do is import the misery of other countries into your own and one day you will find yourself affected by that *beep* be it as a victim of violence, or maybe your child will turn to drugs, or he will be be a retard who cannot find a decent job.
If you dont care about building a decent society you have not got the right to call yourself civilized, or a christian, jew, muslim, etc.
As long as we fight among ourselves, we are too busy to see who the real enemy is. Hate and fear are the primary tools used to exploit us. They fear that we might educate ourselves about how things really are. They fear that we might band together. These are two more reasons there is so much pressure to censor the internet.
shareI agree with you on the scene near the end of the movie, but i liked this film. The casting of adrien brody helps out a bit though. I don't know if I would have checked this out if he wasn't in it. Still a good film.
I'm a janitor fror the same union and I know supervisors just like George's. It's hard working for people who have no idea how to get the job done other than to scare you in to getting the job done. If you messagers know anyone who is a janitor refer this to them. They'll thank you.
When You Know Better, You'll Do Better.
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I have a couple of years' experience organizing, which is why I liked this movie so much---hell, I just participated in a sit-down protest/march/impromptu church service last week---I remember chanting "Si se puede! (Yes, we can!) in a protest a couple of years back. Basically everything about the protests, the organizers confronting the 1% on their stomping grounds/home turf and giving information to the workers about how the company was scheming to undercut union workers by exploiting cheap immigrant labor (the janitors themselves) I connected with all of that in the film because I've done all that throughout the few years I've been learning to be an volunteer organizer, and I still love it. Also, Adrien Brody was absolutely cute and funny in this (I've always had a thing for guys with beards) and he played an excellent role, and not the typical "white savior" role you would usually see in a Hollywood film---this was a good little indie drama that should have gotten more attention that it did-- I never even heard of this flick until I tried renting it out a couple of years back.
Yes, that scene with Maya and her sister Rosa was gut-wrenching, and I hate what happened to Maya in the end, but I understood why she did it, and why she was willing to take that chance and jepardize her own shot at the so-called American dream. Also, it was a trip seeing George Lopez not only play a dramatic role (I loved his comedy show that came on a few years back that got kicked to the curb by the network--a shame, because it was a damn good show that actually made me laugh, unlike most sitcoms today) and on top of that,playing a character who was a real a**hole---talk about a major change of pace---he was good in it,too--you straight-up hated that character he played!
BTW,there was a documentary made a couple of years back which was about a real life case of a group of Mexican female workers in a factory that fought a very similar case like the one in BREAD AND ROSES---it took them about 3 or 4 years,but they won their cases against the employer, who wasn't paying them anything and was non-union. I can't rememeber the name of it, will have to look it up--I'm wondering if B&R was actually based on this---it's possible.