Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Documentary > Politics > Immigration > Art > Mexico > United States > 2501 Migrants: A Journey (2010/Cinema Libre DVD)

2501 Migrants: A Journey (2010/Cinema Libre DVD)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Documentary: C+

 

 

If there is one thing I am sick and tired of is the ugly trend of bashing people from other countries, especially people from Mexico coming to the U.S. to try and have a better life.  Illegal immigration does NOT equal a person being illegal and legal terms aside, it is totally unacceptable in all cases to label anyone this way.  Why?  Because it has become a political football, a new form a palatable racism and these are human being we are talking about, not some stupid polemic.  It is so serious that people have died trying to have a better life and Yolanda Cruz’s 2510 Migrants: A Journey (2010) tells us about this in a new light.

 

Alejandro Santiago is an artist who grew up in Teococuilco, a town he returns to find it in trouble and of having many of its people try to come to the U.S. for a better life.  However, some of them did not make it alive there or back.  He decides to make their lives and existence harder to ignore by building statues as tribute to them, all 2,510 of them.  This nearly hour-long work shows us how.

 

Know that I am not encouraging illegal activity or saying everyone coming over here is free of being wrong of anything, but we are talking about people dying here.  The politics are a separate essay.  Until we start dealing with people as not disposable (and that is a problem with people in the U.S. who are citizens, let alone all of this) will this problem ever begin to get solved.  Yes, the artworks reminds one of The Holocaust and rightly so, to people with dreams (think El Norte, for instance) who don’t know what to do or where to turn.  Silence before and silence now made all of it possible and more people need to speak up with solutions, especially those with the power and wealth to fix this for the better.  2510 Migrants: A Journey is a record of a very important record that should not be ignored.

 

The letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image is soft and has aliasing errors, but color is not bad and this is a documentary, so it is going to be a little rough and under the circumstances, we're lucky it exists at all.  I liked the editing too.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best, sometimes with location audio issues, but more consistent than expected considering the effort it took to make it.  Extras include Deleted Scenes, trailers, Extended Interviews and a Photo Gallery.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com