Criterion Review #1 ...And the Pursuit of Happiness

...And the Pursuit of Happiness (1986)

This documentary by Louis Malle examines the wide range of immigrant experiences in America in the 1980s, told through interviews and Malle's own occasional commentary.  The scope of the film is impressive.  Malle interviews a Costa Rican astronaut working for NASA, a Vietnamese doctor living in Nebraska, an Ethiopian working for Texas Instruments, several Mexican immigrants as they attempt to cross the border, a West Indian poet, an Indian motel owner and his family, and a deposed Nicaraguan general, among others.

The most fascinating aspect of this documentary, besides the individuals whose stories are told, is how they are all linked under the banner of America.  What do these stories say about this country?  Watching it today, in a post-post-911 world, one cannot help but reflect upon how America has changed and yet has remained utterly the same as it was in the 80s.  Why is it, for instance, that many Indian and Asian immigrants continue to thrive in the American economic model, while Latino-Americans and African-Americans have largely been relegated to the lower classes, working the jobs on the bottom rung?  What's in a culture that determines its individuals' success rates?

Take, for example, the Ethiopian man who came to America and worked his way up from dish washer, to cab driver, to Texas Instruments employee.  Is he not proof that if you work hard enough, you can make a comfortable life for yourself in America?  Or the Indian motel owner who had nothing when he came here and now owns real estate all over San Jose?  But look again, and you will see the Mexican field worker, working just as hard with not near the success at climbing up the economic ladder. 
  
As the first interviewee says, many immigrants "come with a lot of dreams and we work hard to fulfill them."  And most of the interviewees in the film say they love America, even when they miss their home countries or struggle to find a way to support their families.

The documentary takes no sides, but presents each person's case from a humanistic standpoint, listening to their stories, empathizing with their situations.  In the end, Malle thanks the people who agreed to be interviewed, admiring their tremendous courage.

As a White person born in this country, with no immediate relatives who were immigrants, devoid of any culture but American culture (and really, what is that?) and with all freedoms given to me straightway, the film, I'm ashamed to say, made me a little envious.  To have such immediate purpose as the immigrants who come to this country do, and to have to work so hard just to make a comfortable life for one's self.... that, in itself, seems to be its own fulfillment.