La Ciudad: Movie Review (2009)

David Riker’s “La Ciudad” is one powerhouse of a film.

Shot in luminous black-and-white and using non-actors in almost every role, it is a remarkable achievement of filmmaking that restores one’s faith in the art itself. It's the sort of film that will make audiences feel uncomfortable, question their relationships with the outside world, look hard at man’s inhumanity to man, and perhaps even change their lives.

The film does what literature cannot do--its stark, haunting images allow immediate access into New York City’s Latin American immigrant community. In a series of four seamless vignettes, it focuses on the disenfranchised, those men, women and children who fled Mexico for the United States in hopes of finding a better life.

That elusive dream comes to no one in “La Ciudad”; if anything, the dreams many carried thousands of miles from their native homeland have only fallen headlong into nightmare: one man is killed when a building collapses on him, a sweatshop worker is desperate to raise $400 so she can save her dying daughter, two young people find love only to lose one another, a homeless man is unable to send his daughter to school so she might have a chance at a better life.

It has been said that many live lives of quiet desperation--director Riker knows this and respects it. His film is a poignant reminder of those overlooked individuals struggling to make it on society’s fringe.

Grade: A