Sin #82: Borders

“We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us!”

Jessica Alba in “Machete”

The topic of illegal immigrants remains, to this day, a big issue in the United States. After the attacks of September 11 xenophobia took on a whole new meaning and Muslims became targeted as religious extremists, not much to the concern of White America (especially the kind of bigots who have enforced ridiculous security measures on airports to the point of harassing hundreds of thousands of innocent travelers).

For the past few years, the border between Mexico and USA has become a warzone for Latinos in search of the promised American dream, even though they pretty much have to endure low wages and terrible working conditions; since they are illegal, they aren’t expected to demand insurance or any kind of work benefits.

While the United States remains one of the great multiethnic nations in the world, it pretty much remains divided by hate and intolerance (vividly exemplified in Paul Haggis’s “Crash”). In this social and political climate comes the movie “Machete” with a big smirk on its face and a “fuck you” attitude. By making a schlocky B-movie in the Grindhouse tradition, Robert Rodriguez has taken the caricature of the ignorant but hard working Latino and transformed it into a bad-ass action icon (played by the inimitable Danny Trejo, whose role as a protagonist was long overdue). “Machete” first started as a fake trailer showing before Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” and became so popular that he decided to expand it to feature length.

Machete himself is a retired federal agent who seeks revenge on the man who murdered his wife and daughter (played very “tongue-in-cheek” by Steven Seagal, who not only is portraying his first villain ever but is also supposed to be Mexican). Machete later becomes entangled in a plot to assassinate a senator and also ends up supporting an underground rebel movement led by a mysterious revolutionary called “She”.

The violence in “Machete” is extreme and the political message is none too subtle (subtlety has never been one of Rodriguez’s strong points). He has often said that he never meant to make a social comment and that the whole “Arizona Law” debacle merely coincided with the release of the film. It is, however, pretty obvious that the movie is meant to support immigrants and criticize American policies. But if you decide to avoid any sort of political statement you can certainly enjoy “Machete” for being a slice of delicious mexploitation mayhem.

A movie that deals more seriously with the issue of illegal immigrants is “Frozen River” starring Melissa Leo as a single mother desperately trying to provide for her family by aiding an Indian woman in transporting illegal aliens. The film is a bleak look at the underbelly of poverty in America and the cost of survival. The actions in the film may be morally reprehensible but, in a way, are enforced upon people who can barely survive on a day-to-day basis.

The racial tension is still seen full-force with President Obama, whose detractors, in full ignorance, dare to claim he is a Muslim as if saying that his partisan worldview represents a danger to the western civilization. It’s a sad state of affairs when even the so-called Free World can’t even get along.