August 28, 2006
Maria Full of Grace (Maria llena eres de gracia) (2004)
Winner of the Dramatic Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and two major awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Maria Full of Grace is one young woman’s journey from a small Colombian town to the streets of New York. A bright, spirited 17-year old, Maria Alvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) lives with three generations of her family in a cramped house in rural Colombia and works stripping thorns from flowers in a rose plantation. The offer of a lucrative job involving travel—in fact, becoming a drug “mule”—changes the course of her life. Far from the uneventful trip she is promised, Maria is transported into the risky and ruthless world of international drug trafficking. Her mission becomes one of determination and survival and she finally emerges with the grace that will carry her forward into a new life. Directed by Joshua Marston. In Spanish, with English sub-titles. An HBO films / Fine Line Features release.
From: “Synopsis,” HBO Films / Fine Line Features. http://www.mariafullofgrace.com/index.html
From “Half-In Half-Out”
An essay by Joshua Marston, writer/director of Maria Full of Grace
Maria Full of Grace is my first feature. On one level, it’s a tense story about a seventeen-year-old girl from the outskirts of Bogotá, Colombia who swallows a half-kilo of heroin in thumb-sized pellets and boards a plane for New York. But on another level, it is the story of a young woman who feels trapped by the confines of life in a small town and is looking for a way out—searching, as it were, for a situation where she feels more truly at home. Once Maria begins to move she keeps on moving throughout the film.
Pretty much the first question I always get asked by journalists, especially when they find out I am not Colombian, is how I got interested in this story. The implication is that the story seems far afield from who I am—me, a Jewish kid from L.A. who has lived in Berkeley, Paris, Chicago, Prague and now New York. I have, after all, never swallowed drugs and carried them on a plane to the U.S. And I’ve never been a seventeen-year-old girl in Colombia. But like Maria I am constantly moving, always looking for something new.
I move around because when I am in a new place my eyes are more widely open, my ears more sensitive. For me, filmmaking is about looking outward, listening to other people’s stories and then finding a way to translate them onto the screen. Researching the film was a long process of hundreds and hundreds of conversations with all sorts of people—from former drug mules in prison to women working in flower plantations in Colombia, from Customs inspectors at Kennedy airport to Colombian immigrants in Queens.
The result is that many Colombians who see the film comment that it feels like it could have been made by a Colombian. But the same Colombians sometimes say that while everything in it feels authentic and familiar, the style of cinematic realism is something foreign to them, not so common in Colombian films. So in a sense, I am Colombian but I am also not Colombian.
This half-in half-out feeling is something Colombian immigrants (and many other immigrants for that matter) have often related to me and which I made a point of putting in the film. There is a scene where one of the characters (Carla) describes the pain of not being able to be back in Colombia for a birthday but then immediately describes the pride of living in New York, where she can make enough money to send back home. The day we shot the scene (in the heart of the Colombian community in Queens) I came out of the apartment-set to find a Colombian man—about sixtyish, with pressed blue pants, a plastic shopping bag in one hand—standing in the hallway by the monitor. He lived in the building and had been on his way up to his apartment when he stopped to watch the scene and listen in on the dialogue through the open doorway. He pulled me aside and told me how much he related to the character’s ambivalence, living in this great, cold city, so far from “home.” And then he thanked me—for giving voice to this feeling, for giving it enough importance to put on screen. I will never forget that.
The film is finally finished now, and a month ago I traveled to Colombia for the premiere there. Standing in front of several hundred people, I told the audience (in my now Colombian-accented Spanish) that although I am not Colombian I have come to feel “un poco Colombiano.” Much to my surprise the audience instantly burst into applause. I was completely taken aback. As if my feeling of being Colombian were being confirmed, accepted. After so many years of working on this film, after all of my moving around I have found another home of sorts, in Colombia.
I don’t think I have ever felt quite that sort of embrace even here in New York. I came to the city almost a decade ago in order to make films and in spite of those ten years I still feel half-in half-out of being a New Yorker. Just as I am half-in half-out of being a little bit Colombian. It is a sort of condition I am coming to accept, this half-in half-out-ness. But I realize that I would have it no other way, for this is what crystallizes my vision and sharpens my hearing. It is what makes me fully at home, as a filmmaker.
Marston, Joshua. Landmark Theaters, 2004. http://www.movienet.com/mariafullofgrace.html
Discussion Questions: Maria Full of Grace
1. Half-In and Half-Out. In his essay, Joshua Marston writes that it is his “half-in half-out-ness” that crystallizes his vision and sharpens his hearing. In what ways is Maria from the movie also “half-in, half-out” of both U.S. and Colombian cultures? How might this sharpen her vision or give her a unique perspective on either culture? How is her experience similar to/different from the experience of other immigrants entering the U.S.? In what ways is the viewing audience (like Maria) positioned “half-in and half-out” of these two cultures?
2. Maria’s body as a vessel. In this movie, Maria’s body becomes a sort of vessel, both for the drugs she carries across the border and for her unborn child. Is this movie depicting women’s bodies as empowering or as disempowering? Is this a feminist movie?
3. “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” At the end of the movie as the camera fades an advertisement in the background reads, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts.” What is the significance of this sign within the larger context of the movie? Make a list of all of the things that are on the “inside” of Maria (both literally and metaphorically). What is Marston saying about Maria’s ability to carry so many disparate things/ideas within her? Why might it be significant that this message is conveyed in the form of an advertisement? Is the ending hopeful? Why or why not?
Assignment: Borderlands/La Frontera and Maria Full of Grace (2004)
Write a letter from Gloria Anzaldúa (author of Borderlands/La Frontera) to Maria from Maria Full of Grace advising her on how to adjust to life in New York. In this letter, make sure to address the following issues:
124a1. Introduction: Why does Gloria Anzaldúa feel she is well-positioned to give Maria advice? What kind of perspective does Anzaldúa (as a lesbian Chicana feminist) offer?
2. Maria’s body as a vessel (for drugs, but also for her unborn child): In what ways does Maria’s body empower her? In what ways does it disempower her?
3. Was Maria’s decision to be a drug mule a good decision? Why or why not? Did she have any other options?
4. Maria’s cultural transition: What are some strategies Maria could use to adapt to her new life in New York?
5. Old traditions/new traditions: How can Maria respect her Colombian heritage while adapting to life in New York?
6. Women immigrants: What special challenges do women immigrants face? Has Maria done a good job of dealing with these challenges? What might she have done better?
7. Maria’s decision to keep her baby: Was this a good decision? Why or why not?