and look, isn't that the secret terrorist fist-bump?

Thinking some more about La Misma Luna, here are two things I came up with:

1. The reason movies like Slumdog Millionaire and La Misma Luna irritate me is that I think they give privileged people a get-out-of-jail-card. Both movies show poverty and adversity, and they focus on individuals who break out of their circumstances. But most people never break free of circumstance, and poverty prevails. So, leaving the theaters feeling warm and fuzzy really doesn't help anyone. Even worse: maybe leaving the theaters feeling warm and fuzzy keeps us from doing something.

2. The one character in La Misma Luna that has stayed with me is Enrique. He is the immigrant who reluctantly helps little Carlito get to Los Angeles, and to find his mom. In a key scene he gives Carlito, and the audience, a speech. He talks about how no one would choose the life of an undocumented immigrant, how people who live like that do it because they have to. Everybody has a reason, he says.

We never learn Enrique's reason. In fact, we never learn anything at all about him. At the end of the movie he remains the anonymous immigrant. And that's why I remember him. He is the guy at the corner, the gardener, the bus boy, the dish washer. Ready to work, and with a deep personal reason that we will never know.