Efficiency with two peasants. A little piece of work from 2009, I was responsible for the production design, the set, and all of the props. In it, a young immigrant couple fumble and survive in a quirky new superstructure, reminding us that the cultural change made by a first generation can often be overwhelming. the punchline is the mamoncillo man, a character found in any urban culture, the "do it all" hustler which for better or worse operates by the demands of any disadvantaged community. Although we never showed it explicitly, The community is plays a large part, it's lifestyle is what we hoped to catch a glimpse of; that perpetual cycle of not getting out of one problem just to land in another. The movie It's also a container of cultural nuances in Miami; the hybrid of spanish and english, an effigy to a now extinct Luria's department store, the muted sounds of Univision news on the television in an adjacent room, are all bookended by an ode to a new western heritage; the first movement of Bach's Partita in A minor. The script sounds amateurish in some places, and that's fine with me, so is the delivery, and the set, and the props... and thats just the point. The puppet theater aesthetic, and staple gun contraction lets us know that this is a raw idea, much like the lives of the characters.There is no need for polishing up where were going, there's also no time. Now looking back I see more of a nervous energy In the actors than I did when we had just filmed it. They were cast to play their own caste, and there is a timid and hopeful charm to their performance. In a smile, or a change of cadence in their dialogue, I can see the effort to represent the archetype of their characters, as well as something of how they behave with their own mates. I remember before we got started I felt nervous that I didn't fully understand what the story was about, I just remember having a good feeling about the essence of the script and its characters. Going into it we knew this film was very particular, full of meaning but only for a very particular slice of this culture. It's a story that maybe only we, the children of these characters, could fully find the irony in.
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