Paraiso Travel

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

A kind of Sin Nombre-lite -- very light, but still enjoyable -- Paraiso Travel tracks a group of Colombian immigrants before, during and after their landing in the USA, and finally into my own little New York neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens. Beginning with a set of knock-out opening credits, as the camera glides over the tiny rooms in a kind of halfway house for illegals, the filmmakers observe from on high the various goings-on with a clear-eyed, non-judgmental look. (The closing credits are equally good, and even more artistic.)

Director Simon Brand (Unknown), with the help of co-writers Jorge Franco Ramos and Juan Manuel Rendon, weaves his narrative in a before-and-after grid: in Colombia, on the journey (sometime quite harrowing) and finally in New York. Concentrating on two young almost-lovers, Marlon (Aledemar Correa, a looker who comes off like an Hispanic James Marsden) and Reina (Angelica Blandon), the movie tells of what happens when the two are suddenly and completely separated. Marlon must fend for himself, which he does, using his charm and looks to win over some help from the Jackson Heights locals — yet always pining for, and looking for, Reina.

The film’s pacing is sharp: Just enough time spent is in New York, and then we’re whisked back to the journey. And as past and present build up, we begin to get some sense of the character of these two immigrants (Reina, we note at one point on a bus, is a casually racist young woman). The movie manages to be quite atmospheric, particularly of some of the seedier locations like the squatter’s habitat that Marlon for a time calls home. The building is located next to a health and sports clubs and the tenants can hear the handballs constantly hitting the other side of the wall. This has, eventually, a surprising consequence. Throughout the film, people and objects appear, disappear and reappear, often quite changed. John Leguizamo has a fine time playing a seedy but stylish porn photographer whose home is one of the squatter apartments.

Neither a must-see nor a should-miss, Paraiso Travel chugs along, filled with incident that keeps the plot moving and our interest alert. It’s yet another in a growing wealth of films about our immigrant population: where they came from, who they are, what they want and need, and how they continue – as they have since our country’s birth – to change the face of America.