Film Difficulty Ranking: 4
Lupe Under the Sun features an ageing migrant worker from Michoacan working in California’s Central Valley. It deals with the vagueness of migrant identity – is Lupe Mexican or American? Or both and neither at the same time? The director, Rodrigo Reyes, shows migration to be both an inspired act of hope and a frightening leap into the unknown.
Why Watch Lupe Under the Sun?
- For a timely look at the life of a lonely migrant worker in the U.S. a group verbally assaulted by Trump
- To see an old man riding a tricycle
- Step in somebody else’s shoes – take a walk through the eyes of an immigrant worker in an unfamiliar environment which you call home
- What does it mean to not belong?
The Breakdown
The film starts with a narration by Lupe’s grandson as Lupe walks through arid landscape and orchards.
He says that his grandfather told him a secret; that he was going to America to paint a really big house that will take him a long time. He won’t be back for some time, because he has to keep painting.
Does Lupe really belong here? He doesn’t talk to anyone, except one scene where he is gambling around a small table with two other guys. He doesn’t answer his girlfriend, he mumbles back to the doctor, and doesn’t make any effort to start any conversation. His lack of dialogue emphasises his lack of belonging and identity. He has no friends and no one he cares about in the Central Valley. He has no reason to stay where he is or go home.
Furthermore, his days are occupied by ritual. He wakes up at 4am each morning, cooks his eggs, showers, and shaves his moustache before he gets picked up to go pick fruit. Each day we are shown this same ritual emphasised by fixed shots of the alarm clock, the cooking hob, and the kitchen sink. The repeated shots emphasise the mundaneness of Lupe’s life – is he brave for sticking out this monotone life? His only joy seems to come from riding his tricycle around town.
Why is Lupe living here? Why doesn’t he go back to Mexico where he might feel a little more belonging? Lupe is symbolic of the ‘no-man’s land’ of migrant identity – he is both the man of his past life in Mexico and the man of his present in the U.S. Pick this one for a quiet night in to watch with someone else – watching it alone might make you question your loneliness.
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