Cinematical

American independent cinema frequently introduces us to customs and traditions we might not see otherwise. Films about unfamiliar wedding ceremonies, ethnic neighborhoods and religious ceremonies are given exposure year after year, thanks mostly to audiences who want to see something new or different. Sure, the films may often be the result of minority filmmakers representing their backgrounds for all to see, but it is the common moviegoers who curiously accept and enable these cultural showcases.

Now we have Quinceañera, which skips the representative filmmaker and fittingly shows us a community from a detached perspective -- our perspective, and the filmmakers'. Written and directed by two white guys (Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland), the film looks at the coming of age of a young Mexican-American girl, and of her L.A. neighborhood, Echo Park, from clearly an outsider's point of view.

The girl, Magdalena (Emily Rios), is shown in the months leading up to her Quinceañera, a traditional ceremony for Hispanic girls turning 15, which marks their entry into womanhood, and which can be so extravagant, drivers-by could mistake one for a wedding. Magdalena becomes pregnant, though, putting not just a damper on her formal dress alterations, but also on her home life. She flees her disapproving preacher father and moves in with her great-great uncle, Tomas (Chalo González). Already being sheltered by Tomas is Magdalena's cousin, Carlos (Jesse Garcia), who has been disowned by his immediate family for being a homosexual.

Glatzer and Westmoreland present these characters by playing on our expectations, or at least our supposed expectations, as if showing their own surprising discoveries with the Echo Park area, which the filmmakers, themselves, moved into not long ago. For instance, Magdalena's pregnancy is not actually the result of having unprotected, underage sex. She's really a good girl! And Carlos is introduced first as something of a tough guy, who we're led to assume will get violent with a gay couple (David W. Ross and Jason L. Wood) that comes onto him, before slowly revealing that he is in fact interested. He's a masculine Latino, and he's gay! Like this year's Best Picture Oscar-winner, Crash, which, as one critic (I wish I could remember who -- maybe Armond White) brilliantly pointed out, comes off like the cinematic equivalent of white people who feel the need to remind others that they have black friends, Quinceañera is a slightly, unintentionally racist film that seems to say, "look what we found out about Mexican-Americans."

The strange thing is that the filmmakers sort of call attention to their own objectifying by including the two gay characters, who are new to the neighborhood, and whom they've obviously modeled after themselves (one is even British, just like Westmoreland). These two characters are exemplified by their ignorance of the people living around them, and they cold-heartedly take advantage of Carlos as well as their own gentrifying power within Echo Park. It is probable that Glatzer and Westmoreland have exaggerated, and even darkened, their on-screen personas, because no writers could be so admitting of their own cruelties (and because they would never have received the support of their neighbors, many of whom appear in the film), but still the representation is there.

Fortunately this isn't a modern minstrel show, and the Mexican-American actors and actresses do well enough to respectfully express the community from the inside with their wonderful performances. Regardless of whatever issues may be had with the filmmakers' impersonal handling of the story, Rios, Garcia, and especially González pretty much rescue the movie from Glatzer and Westmoreland, often succeeding in making it their own. In fact, the three main characters, and the actors who play them, can all be viewed as a heroic trio that overcomes the oppression and exploitation brought on by the gay couple/filmmakers.

Underneath a lot of bad dialogue and contrived structure there is a great story to be found in Quinceañera. Magdalena's and Carlos' comings of age coincide with a transitional period, physically and spiritually, going on in their community. The young characters are not rebellious or disrespectful of their heritage or traditions; they simply wish to progress customs with the times, and maybe question those ideas which don't adapt well. When Magdalena tells her boyfriend that she'd like to travel back in time to see how the Bible's stories really were, she may not mean it not in a tourist way, but in a skeptical way. Another great theme dealt with in the film is forced change, displayed in the community's dealing with gentrification and in Magdalena's dealing with her impending motherhood.

Even the theme of cinematic voyeurism is an interesting one, and it is too bad Glatzer and Westmoreland didn't embrace their role completely, or intentionally, even if it would have likely clashed too much with the film's central ideas and storylines. There is a film there to be made, though, about our momentary interest in foreign things like Hispanic maturity rituals, and why, after obsessing over them, as we did with Chris Eyre's look at modern Native American life in Smoke Signals and Nia Vardalos' big fat Greek wedding, we can't embrace these now-familiar cultures, or the championed filmmakers who first presented them, for another go around, instead of leaving them behind for the next new or different thing.

Quinceañera is certainly, at its least, a fairly enjoyable movie. When it premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival, an event that is oftentimes synonymous with the words new and different, it won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, so that must go to show that the people like it. But will they like the next film from Glatzer and Westmoreland? Fortunately for them, there are other ethnic neighborhoods out there, and they could probably move on to the next new or different thing, too.

For more on Quinceañera, see Kim Voynar's review of the film at Sundance and interview with directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.