Carmelo Muñiz Sanchez is an undocumented Mexican national who ekes out a living playing the guitar and singing in Mission District restaurants. He and his partner, Arturo Arias, sing romantic ballads to chipper Anglos enjoying a night out. "We like happy, romantic," chirps one diner. Carmelo and Arturo comply. Then they stride through the night to another restaurant, eventually settling in for a late-night snack at an all-night doughnut shop. Filmmaker Mark Becker shoots the scene from outside, framing it like Edward Hopper's famous painting Nighthawks.
Song and Dance: Arturo Arias and Carmelo Muñiz Sanchez head to another gig.
the Embarcadero
Related Content
More About
We can almost hear Becker directing Sanchez, the subject of his documentary Romántico: "OK, Carmelo, stand over there."
Sanchez is a nice man and complies, and Becker (the film's director, editor, and camera operator) gets his shot — whether that's the middle-aged man seated in the cafe, standing with an empty road behind him, walking past a colorful mural of the Southwestern desert, or standing in front of a brick wall. But nice shots aren't enough to carry an entire movie.
Becker's film has an interesting topic — a man's survival — with a sympathetic subject, but it cruelly exposes the limits of this passive form of documentary, which gives us much to see but little to take away. Sanchez, solo or accompanied by other musicians, sings many songs throughout Romántico. Are they particularly good examples of the music of his part of Mexico? Do they represent a defined musical tradition? Does Sanchez bring anything particularly individual or creative to the form? What do his love ballads say about his life and struggles? Couldn't tell you.
Halfway through the film Sanchez returns to his home village in Mexico. Is Salvatierra in northern Mexico, in the south, or somewhere near Mexico City? What's unique about its culture? How does that culture feed into Sanchez's music? No idea.
In San Francisco, Sanchez sleeps on the floor of what looks like a broom closet, and camps out under what looks like a sheet draped over a ladder. He shares the space with several other people, seeming grateful to those who put him up. What is he paying? Is he getting value for his hard-earned money, or is he being exploited? Can't say.
I could look up some of these details on the Internet, perhaps, or in the press notes, but I'm sticking strictly to what's in the film — which provides no answers to any of these questions. It's a frustrating approach, one that leaves viewers no more enlightened at the end of watching the movie than they'd be if they'd simply followed a balladeer around the Mission themselves.
Becker is working in the "observational" mode of documentary filmmaking, which originated in the 1960s and is by now pretty well played out. The technique was a necessary break from old-fashioned lecture-style films, packed with information that hid their agendas and bored audiences into submission. More than 40 years on, however, Becker's "don't ask don't tell" style registers as an evasion — ducking responsibility to both his subject and his audience.
It's not as if he's just letting things flow — that is to say, he isdirecting this movie. Becker takes every opportunity to stylize the action in search of an interesting image. Thus we have many, many shots of Sanchez posing against stark backgrounds or striding down the streets of San Francisco in slow motion. Becker has the happy knack of being able to pull together a balanced composition seemingly on the spur of the moment. As a result, Romántico is a handsome film. It's also smoothly edited, and has other virtues as well: We get to know Sanchez, his wife, and his two daughters, and we grow to care about them. And it reveals a lot (if you pay attention) about what it's like to sing for a living, both in the United States and in Mexico.
For instance, there doesn't seem to be much employment available back home — we see a lot of Sanchez in his side job selling flavored ice. Thanks to his efforts, his mother gets a decent funeral and his oldest girl gets a nice quinceañera. His savings are gone, though, by the end of the movie. He really doesn't want to go back to the U.S. — crossing the desert would be too hard — so we leave him in Mexico, with no idea of where he goes from there.
All of these events would most likely have happened without Becker there to film them. With his seamed face and tired eyes, Sanchez holds the screen, but he also seems as if he's being agreeable just to be agreeable. After all, he's used to being pushed around. There's nothing to indicate that Becker has been anything but benign and well meaning in the making of Romántico, but he's left Sanchez with no voice in his own song.
foam order.com
