Critique of the Movie Entre Nos - Essay Example

? Visual Arts and Film Studies The survival of immigrants in any environment is significant in the society especially if they can overcome challenges of new language, culture, and politics. City culture can be analyzed from the perspectives of popular culture and arts such as films, novels, short stories, and architecture among others (Zukin, 1995). In this paper, the movie Entre Nos (2009) will be used to analyze some urban issues that face immigrants in many cities. This movie is great based on the argument posited by Thomson (2011) that a movie is great if the so called authorities agree with such description. The movie proves to us that lack of immigrants’ cultural understanding, close friendship and interpersonal relationship in a city results to frustrations, mistreatment and suffering of immigrants in the cities. As Zukin (1995) analyzes, culture is a powerful tool for controlling cities. Culture is a summation of social, economic, linguistic, and political aspects of life and how people in a particular setting execute these components in their unique way. The video is an account of an experience by Mariana; a wife and mother of two young children, Gabriel and Andrea. Mariana’s husband, whom they have immigrated to live with in New York City, abandoned the naive family at the city. Unable to settle bills, Mariana is evacuated from their rented apartment to the streets and things get worse when she discovers that she is pregnant. In addition to her lack of knowledge of the language spoken in the vicinity, she has not employment or work experience. Language is a powerful tool in life and immigrants are sometimes constrained and limited when they can not express themselves in the middle of strangers. Inability to understand the language of New York makes it difficult for the family to adapt to the culture of the city given that culture is inculcated largely through language. One of the inevitable thing that city immigrants should establish is social network; a powerful tool that members of the society can use for survival. In the vast urban environment, such as that of New York where Mariana and her two kinds were struggling to survive, social network could have been a way of soliciting for support from friends and neighbors. For example, immigrants should have a way of communicating and associating with their fellow immigrants, neighbors or those close to them. For example, if Mariana had known another fellow immigrant in the town, she could have been assisted because not all immigrants suffered the tragedy. In fact, the story would have been different if her husband stayed and continued to support his family. Another survival tactic, which ensures safety and security when one gets to a vast urban environment is creating close friendships with the people one is close to; either neighbors, workmates or associates. Close friendships makes a person to acquire and amass enough social, political and even economic security because friends can help in finding a solution in extreme cases instead of learning the hard way like Mariana. Moreover, close friendship is a significant part of social life and, as noted from the movie, much of the agonies that Mariana and her two kids underwent were as a result of lack of close friendship. As it is known, men are created solitary beings, but necessity forces them to create social networks because there is no survival in isolation. In this case, cities are depicted in an influential cinema as tragic places where people are not concerned much about their neighbors. In cities like the one Mariana was living, the owners of property such as tenants in urban areas are exceptionally capitalistic, and they are only concerned with their economic gains and not social welfare of their tenants; it is an economic regime that does not consider those who do not have. Economic challenges are, therefore, not a concern of the owners of resources in cities. For example, we see the owner of the apartment where Mariana and her family rented kick them out. This is a scene which most immigrants should be familiar with especially if they happen to be caught in the situation as that of Mariana and family - lack of knowledge of dominant language, culture, social, economic and political situation in cities. As seen in the movie, there is no concern for a person who can not take care of bills, and especially immigrants who can not express themselves like Mariana. Therefore, only close friendship network can salvage someone in such a situation. Moreover, the social life and concern at urban settings are extremely volatile and loose, and it is inevitable for new city immigrants to establish interpersonal relationships. This is the kind of relationship that could have helped Mariana had she been in a position to create one. Entre Nos (2009) is a great movie, which captures the shocking reality that lies behind the wealthy township in the United Stated. In any urban setting, lack of knowledge of the culture, the language, economic, social and political structures can make someone live an underdog life even when they do not deserve it. Most of these elements, as seen in the movie, are closely related. For example, language carries all the power to understanding other complexities. Close friendship is so vital that it would save a person regardless of whether it is cultivated to close relatives, neighbors, workmates, and associates among others. It is from this close relationship that interpersonal relationships are established. Therefore, the culture, language, and lifestyle of urban setting would be easy if immigrants establish close relations with other people in the city. If immigrants like Mariana found an environment where these structures existed, they would not have suffered the tragedies of life they suffered in one of the most affluent cities in the United States. The movie is engaging not only the society and authority, but also the immigrants who get to cities to evaluate the issues of culture, language and close friendship in order to enhance their chances of survival in new environments. References Thomson, D. (2011). When is a Movie Great? The Perils of Medium and Magic (Harper’s Magazine). Retrieved 25, March 2013, from http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/midmorning/?date=07-29-2011 Zukin, S. (1995). “Whose Culture? Whose City?” (pp. 85-86) From The Culture of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Read More