The Importance of International Storytelling

Good morrow, fellow readers!

I’d like to start this off with a small story. Picture this, if you will: you are 15 years old, you’re sat down in your living room watching a film with your mom. Nothing unusual, right? A typical night in the land of the so-called free. The film is from Mexico called El Norte (The North) and it’s about an indigenous brother and sister who emigrate from Guatemala to the United States. In my house, Latin American films, music, and TV shows were the norm. Having parents who spoke only fluent Spanish, it made sense to my young mind. I never questioned any of it, that is, until I saw this film.

This film opens your world to the horrid reality of what it’s like to emigrate to the United States and the sacrifice such a decision comes with, such as crawling for 10 miles through a feces-covered, rat-infested sewer. For two hours, I was paralyzed with an overwhelming barrage of fear, sadness, and utter disgust at the treatment of these two people who simply wanted to live. I felt as though I was going through their pain. This is the power of great storytelling, and it wouldn’t be the last international film to have a lasting impact on my life. For many years since, I’ve purposely searched for films to watch from all over the world. The colorful, bright, musically rich stories from Indian Bollywood. The dramatic, magical, martial arts stories called Wuxia from China. The raw, heart- and gut-wrenching stories from Latin America and, most recently, the philosophical wanderings of existentialism through Ingmar Bergman.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 2000

Padmaavat 2018

The Seventh Seal 1957

Being the typical teenager that I was at the time, I automatically thought El Norte was going to suck and be two hours of my life wasted. After having seen El Norte, I was left with only one burning question: why? Why would we treat others as less than, inferior, oftentimes like pure garbage simply for having been born elsewhere? Immigration is at the forefront of political spectacle and racism in today’s world, shown as a stain on the United States that can’t be removed no matter how much wall we build or bans we put in place. These supposed heathens from other countries will find a way to weasel their way in to steal from us! Steal what? Jobs? How, when there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants who work in conditions not fit for humans and only make a fraction of what we do with a typical wage. Steal property? How, when homelessness is an epidemic in the United States while thousands of homes have sat empty for decades. Are we not the country that was built off the backs of stolen African slaves? Of immigrants from all corners of the globe who also put their blood, sweat, and tears into building this country into what it is today? So many lives sacrificed only for this country to turn around and deem them unworthy in their pursuit of happiness. My young mind whirled with questions that bubbled to the surface, but I found no answers except a barrage of ignorance, racism, and statistics that clinically list of each of these human beings as another number.

Mexican immigrant worker at waste disposal site

Indian immigrant workers building new railroads

Italian immigrants building pipeline

The harsh reality is that many of us have bought into the propaganda that has been consistently fed to us from the moment we were born. We tend to live in a bubble of our own making that tells us every day about how lucky we are to be a part of the United States. “Freedom!” they exclaim like a bad Mel Gibson impersonation. How many have us grown up being told that the United States is the “greatest country in the world!” But have any of us seen the truth of this statement anywhere? Maybe at some point in history we were great, but I sure as hell can say for certain that is not the case now. And for many of my generation and those incoming, there is no belief it was ever true. It was a lie those before us fed the world to feel superior for money, power, and dominion over others. Capitalistic greed overtook the importance of humanity. Many of us have awoken to this harsh reality and honestly, there is barely hope that it will change for the better. Were we ever a great country?

The so-called “American Dream,” an image of perfection that was sold to each of us, is nothing but a lie that we were fed to continue feeding the never-ending cycle of wake, work, shop, sleep, repeat. It’s a lie that completely excludes anyone and anything considered different or “foreign.” I know because I watched my parents repeatedly tell me that I was so lucky to be part of the “greatest country in the world.” while I witnessed countless times how they were harassed, degraded, and abused by employers and even everyday people on the street. They had to suffer in silence while they were told they didn’t belong even though everyday they worked themselves raw to get a chance at the “American Dream” they knew they would never achieve. El Norte made me wake up to unjust realities of immigrants in this country and their treatment as if they were expendable cattle. I will be forever grateful to director Gregory Nava and to the many directors around the world for popping this metaphorical bubble.

International cinema has opened me up to new worlds and sides of human existence that I never thought possible. I have learned about the depth of human tragedy from films like El Norte and Salaam Bombay! I have learned about compassion in its purest form from films like The Intouchables and The Lives of Others. Fear, love, happiness, and so many other emotions that most people will never truly know. You will never see a more colorful film than in a Bollywood film, or a more stunning use of magic and acrobatic choreography than in a Chinese film, or a more beautiful harmony of nature and man than in an Akira Kurosawa film, or more raw, emotional honesty than in an Alfonso Cuarón film. These are skills we should harness as storytellers for the betterment of our own films. We are enriched by their view of the world, as they are with our films.

Salaam Bombay! 1988

The Intouchables 2016

Ran 1985

Watching international cinema isn’t about watching a movie in a different language, but about learning from the stories of other human beings and the complexities of human existence. As storytellers, it would be a disservice to each of us to disregard these international films. Yes, they are in a different language and viewers will likely have to read most of the film, but at its core, the story is what we should be devoting our attention to. This is at the very heart and essence of what we are trying to convey to audiences everywhere, are we not? No amount of lighting, acting or special effects will capture the hearts of people quite like witnessing the depth of humanity in all its facets. There is more to this world than just the spectacle of Marvel and superhero films that most people are accustomed to. And this is no hate towards Marvel—they are amazing films and there is a reason why, after over a decade, they are still going stronger than ever: the stories within them that resonate with us.

This world is culturally diverse, full of so many artists and storytellers that each of us can learn and grow from. We will become better storytellers and better this craft that we have chosen to devote our lives to if we open our minds to perspectives different from our own individual experiences. And not just from a filmmaking perspective, but as human beings in general, we ultimately become better people when we learn from these amazing stories.