The eclectic soundtrack, which includes Mexican folk music, Los Lobos, and Pedro Infante, captures the film's spirit, and two key scenes use dancing to great effect: Chucho teaches a group of kids to mambo in a lively moment, and Isabel shows Jimmy how to dance in a scene that's unforgettable for its chemistry, its sheer joy, and the way Smits' character thaws before our eyes. However, their dependence on such old habits places everyone in danger from vengeful mobsters. Nava, who also directed both films, had always wanted to make a movie that centered on the family. Characters are partially nude in passionate love scenes, and there are several violent moments including a bloody shooting, a knife fight that ends in a fatality, and a graphic childbirth scene that ends in a mother's death, her body shown briefly in the morgue. As an adult in 1978, he's an ex-con who follows in Chucho's footsteps and harbors a deep hurt over a tragedy he witnessed as a boy. Paco Edward James Olmos , the eldest son and the film's narrator , is an aspiring writer. Through all the beauty, laughter and tears, the strong heart of the family beats.
Each subsequent generation contends with political and social hardships, ranging from illegal deportations in the 1940s to racial tensions and gang fights in the '60s and '70s. Police strike a man with a nightstick. What follows is a tale involving immigration woes, gangs, joy and tragedy. Few movies like this get made because few filmmakers have the ambition to open their arms wide and embrace so much life. Widescreen Enhanced ; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5. Jimmy is the youngest of the family and the heart of the film.
Jimmy Smits, Jenny Gago, Esai Morales, Edward James Olmos star; look for an uncredited early appearance by Jennifer Lopez. This excellent movie explores the dynamics of Mexican-American families and culture in a way that's not often presented in mainstream cinema. Both of these scenes are fairly graphic and bloody. The people from East Los Angeles cross the bridge, but the people on the western side don't cross into East Los Angeles. José Sanchez Jacob Vargas arrives in California from Mexico and lands a job as a gardener to wealthy families. A lot of specifics came from other families when I was doing research for the film in East Los Angeles.
After all, My Family is just the tip of the iceberg of Latino stories that we have to tell. . Jimmy Smits, who plays troubled son Jimmy, loved making My Family. In that respect the piece to me is like a jewel. Narrated by their son Paco Edward James Olmos , an aspiring writer, My Family moves through each decade chronicling the triumphs and tragedies of an immigrant family trying to make it in America.
The bridges that we have to build between people and members of the family, between fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters, and brothers and sisters. The 1995 film My Family aka My Family, Mi Familia tells the sweeping saga of the Mexican-American Sanchez family across three generations with humor and sensitivity. Gregory Nava also wanted to visually capture the changing look of the Sanchez family home over the course of multiple decades. Occasionally weighed down with melodrama, My Family Mi Familia is nonetheless moving and well-executed, with an epic, almost esque feel. His world changes when he marries Isabel, a maid in danger of being deported back to El Salvador. One recurring theme explores how José and Maria's first-generation children respond to the traditions, cultural values, and ideals of their parents.
A graphic childbirth scene ends in a mother's death, her body shown briefly in the morgue. Toni becomes a nun, but later shocks her parents when she finds her true calling in life. My Family was written by husband and wife team Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas, who received an Oscar® nomination for their highly acclaimed 1983 screenplay collaboration El Norte. Overall, a story of a hardworking, loving, and idealistic family. Beginning with patriarch José's year-long journey on foot from Mexico to California and subsequent marriage to local girl Maria, the Sanchez family plants its roots in East Los Angeles during the 1920s. A mother makes a perilous journey across a river with her baby.
It welcomes viewers inside this tight-knit clan with a mixture of drama and humor, tragedy and romance, and also examines issues familiar to immigrants and their families. It is the bridges that exist between us and our past, as Latinos, our roots, and the bridges that then, understanding that, lead us to our future. I don't think you understand Latino culture unless you understand the family. This is the great American story, told again and again, of how our families came to this land and tried to make it better for their children. A second-generation Mexican immigrant narrates his family history, beginning with the journey of his father, Jose Jacob Vargas , across Mexico to Los Angeles where he meets Maria Jennifer Lopez and starts a family. That way maybe an accomplished director like Greg Nava won't have to wait six years before he gets his next picture made.
Valdez understood what an authentic Mexican-American home should look like and was brought on board to do some of the set design on My Family herself. Two sons emerge as more flagrant rebels. There's a lot of cursing in both English and Spanish; one character drinks and another sells marijuana. Parents need to know that My Family Mi Familia is about a hardworking and loving Mexican-American family has a lot of adult material. Smits as the smoldering, exasperated loner Jimmy finally gives the kind of movie star performance that has been expected of him for years, personally invigorating the entire second half of the film. Yet through it all, or perhaps because of it, the family remains strong. They are separated early in the movie when a pregnant Maria is unjustly deported, and her perilous journey home with an infant son sets up a haunting, mystical thread that runs throughout the movie.