Golden Door: The immigrant experience writ large, and fine

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **** ½

A big, fat "thank you" to Martin Scorsese for his championing of Golden Door, which is up there among (if not THE) best-ever renditions of the immigrant experience. It makes "Titanic"--for all its multi-million-dollar budget and billion-dollar gross--seem something paltry in comparison. Scorsese gives a short intro to the film on the current DVD, and his name was associated front-and-center with the theatrical release in May of 2007. Reviews were generally respectful, but the movie soon disappeared into the usual foreign film obscurity which bedevils our current times, particularly where Italian movies are concerned. (Earlier in the year, Golden Door had been Italy's submission for Best Foreign Language Film but, shockingly, did not make the final five nominees.) Now that I've finally seen it, I must place it near or at the top of the list of last year's best films.

From its first frame, the film jars then compels you because its visuals are so strong, bizarre and immediate. Yet writer/director Emanuele Crialese, prefers to show, not tell. There is little exposition as we follow three generations of a poor Sicilian family making their difficult way toward America, with their tag-along companion, a somewhat mysterious British woman, played by the elegant and odd Charlotte Gainsbourg. Both the large events and small moments throughout the film are so specific and completely imagined that--real or not--they come across as truthful. Based on Crialese's earlier film, Respiro, I would not have pegged him to create anything this amazing, and because so much of the reason the movie works is due to its visual beauty and imagination, I suspect that its cinematographer Agnès Godard (Beau Travail, Backstage, The Intruder) bears at least some of the responsibility.

Among many unforgettable scenes, I'll mention just two: the boat leaving the dock, separating the departing and the remaining with a visual panache that is quietly shocking; and a storm at sea experienced only from the point of view of the passengers below deck. These moments are amazing: It's as though you've never seen sights like these (and you haven't--not the way they are created here). The film is full of this; I'll never again look at the combing of hair--among other simple activities--in the same way. Crialese deserves special acclaim for his powers of selection: What he chooses to show us (and not show us) makes enormous difference to the success of his film. Right now, with immigration again a hot, often nastily-handled, topic, Golden Door provides a welcome window through which to observe this subject. And the movie does not judge. Instead we are allowed to "live" the trip--the preparations, fears, amazements, difficulties, joys and the mixed blessings--as though for the first time.