Geopolitics have changed so much, it seems like ancient history to recall a time when Europeans burned with a fantasy-informed desire to leave their lives behind for the vague promise of the "New World."
Darkly painted, but loaded with humour and ultimately sweetly optimistic, The Golden Door is at times like the Great Migration as imagined by the Coen Brothers.
It is a mobile set-piece, in which seven loosely related people -- six of them from the same small Italian village -- undertake what is the ultimate adventure to people with centuries-old tradition of staying put.
With his camera hungrily drinking up scenery, director Emanuele Crialese takes hold of the adage "the journey is more important than the destination" to create a dream-like odyssey -- one enhanced by actual scenes of over-the-top fantasy -- and a small-scale human epic.
When we meet Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato), he's making an arduous barefoot climb up a small mountain with his son Angelo (Francesco Casisa), to pray at the local cross for guidance on finally making the jump to the New World. Meanwhile, Salvatore's other son, the deaf-mute Pietro, is admiringly spying on two local girls, Rita and Rosa, played by Federica De Cola and Isabella Ragonese.
Salvatore's miracle "sign" arrives in the form of clumsily doctored photos from America showing money growing on trees, chickens the size of large dogs and medicine ball-sized tomatoes.
With such absurdities as pretext, and escape of the pre-industrial primitivism of their lives as motivation, Salvatore, Angelo and Pietro set out to sell their animals to buy shoes, clothing and steerage tickets. They're joined by Rita and Rosa (who are to arrive in New York to arranged marriages) and by Salvatore's angry badger of a mother Fortunata (Aurora Quattrocchi), who provides half the movie's comic relief.
What's remarkable about the Mancuso odyssey is the sheer undertaking (think the beginning of Borat, played much straighter) to go from a basically medieval village to become industrial-age human cargo. It divides the movie into three sharply drawn and utterly-different acts: Overland village voyage, sea crossing, and arrival at Ellis Island.
Through it all, Salvatore's dreams fuel the expedition. He fantasizes being buried up to his head and being painfully but joyfully rained on by coins from a "money-tree," and imagines swimming in a river of milk (yet another apocryphal story of the New World).
Just this side of misery, the crossing is a cattle-like experience.
It's followed by the meanly efficient experience at Ellis Island of deciding who goes and stays -- a process that includes insulting I.Q. tests and a bureaucratized process of confirming which woman passenger is marrying which naturalized Italian.
Through the travails, Salvatore's open-eyed determination and spirit counterbalance what could be a crushingly disappointing experience. He may never find his river of milk, but we get the sense the Mancusos will ultimately make one happen.
(This film is rated PG)
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