Padre Nuestro

Christopher Zalla, who also wrote the story of Padre Nuestro, says what lies at the centre of the film is “the search for family”.

However, this gritty tale of two illegal Mexican immigrants whose lives get irretrievably entwined on the long journey across the border, in a dark, enclosed trailer, is more than that. It is about the search to belong, to have a space of one’s own in the world, any proof that one exists.

That includes the two young Mexicans, Juan (Hernandez) and Pedro (Espindola), on their way to Brooklyn, on a dream to change their life. And Pedro’s father Diego (Ochoa), who has done little in the past 17 years except work round the clock and stash away dollars, only losing interest in everything that he could spend it on. And that also includes Magda (Mendoza), who lives on the street and is ready to barter anything for drugs.

There are hardly any respites in Padre Nuestro, as it shows the vast underbelly of the great American dream. The searches end, as most do, in a million little pieces.

Pedro is on his way to New York to meet his father, who deserted his mother before he was born. Pedro hopes that Diego will be glad to see him and help him. He tells Juan, a fellow illegal migrant, his story, and before the ride ends, Juan has stolen Pedro’s belongings, his identity and landed up at Diego’s home pretending to be his son. Meanwhile, hungry, homeless and broke, Pedro tackles an unknown New York’s streets and secrets.

Nobody has the time to help or even hear him out till he meets Magda, a cynical junkie who makes a deal with him. It’s a friendship born of the night, bound by its worst nightmares.

Meanwhile, Juan, confident and clever, slowly inveigles his way into Diego’s cynical heart. He is everything Diego isn’t, becoming everything that Diego perhaps hoped to be when he set out 17 years ago.

In the midst of it stands Diego. For the three, his house, down a Brooklyn street lined with graffiti, up rickety steps and inside a crumbling old flat, is a shining beacon that they are all trying to wade up to. Filling up the screen with his massive girth, Diego stands like a bulwark, watching those tides of hope lap up against his own broken dreams, till the defences finally crumble.

In perhaps the deftest touches of all, the film shows him lovingly sewing up artificial roses in the night, to make an extra buck. They represent an aspiration that is almost real, just like Diego’s life.