Cast: Pilar Padilla, Adrien Brody, Elpidia Carrillo, Jack McGee, George Lopez, Alonso Chavez, Monica Rivas, Frankie Davila
Director: Ken Loach
Producer: Rebecca O'Brien
Screenplay: Paul Laverty
Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd
Music: George Fenton
U.S. Distributor: Lions Gate Films
In English and Spanish with subtitles
Across the Atlantic Ocean, British filmmaker Ken Loach has devoted his career to a code of honor that acknowledges the basic dignity of a human being, regardless of income or social status. Loach is an activist, and every film he has made illustrates one aspect or another of his world view. Bread and Roses, his follow-up to My Name Is Joe (and his third consecutive feature from a screenplay by Paul Laverty), brings him for the first time to the United States. Set in Los Angeles in the immigrant community, Loach examines the inequities faced by minorities who are forced to subsist on poverty-level wages because they lack the skills and organization to unionize. He personalizes the struggle by focusing on a small group of characters who work as non-union janitors in a downtown high rise.
The film opens with the arrival of Maya (newcomer Pilar Padilla) in Los Angeles. Her sister, Rosa (Elpidia Carrillo), has paid for her to be brought across the border from Mexico. When Rosa is unable to come up with the agreed-upon price, Maya is required to make up for the difference with her body. She escapes and flees to Rosa's house, where the sisters have a joyous reunion. Money is a problem for Rosa, whose husband's doctor's bills eat up much of the income she makes from working long hours as a janitor. Maya also needs work, and Rosa helps her to get a job with her company. Meanwhile, a local activist, Sam (Adrien Brody), is seeking to unionize the workers in the building where Maya and Rosa work - an intention that creates friction between the sisters. Maya believes that it is a cause worth fighting for. Rosa, who cannot afford to lose her job, is unwilling to take any risks.
Loach's pro-union stance emerges loud and clear. In fact, there are times when the film edges close to sermonizing. However, as is always true of the director's films, we become so engrossed in the lives and relationships of the characters that the presentation of the message seems like a natural extension of the story, not something grafted heavy-handedly onto the plot. Loach approaches filmmaking with an almost Dogme-like simplicity (a method he used long before Von Trier et. al. codified the style), employing hand-held cameras, preferring simple shots, and eschewing cinematic trickery. It makes the characters and their situations seem more real and less like a writer's inventions.
One scene in Bread and Roses stands out above all others. It's a searing confrontation between Maya and Rosa that generates goosebumps even as it elevates the film to the next level. The scene must be experienced for its power to be understood; it places everything else in the movie into a different context, and introduces moral ambiguities that pure idealism disallows. The two actresses involved (Padilla and Carrillo) are incredible; not since Lara Belmont's breakdown in The War Zone has there been a more emotionally wrenching moment committed to celluloid.
Several name actors have leant Loach their support for this film by making cameo appearances. They include Lara Belmont and Tim Roth (both of whom were on a publicity tour in Los Angeles for The War Zone when Loach was filming), as well as William Atherton (the sleazy reporter in the first two Die Hard movies) and Ron Perlman. Their presence adds to the film's credibility, but the work of the leads is what gives Bread and Roses its strength. The film is not without faults - it tends to lionize the pro-union movement without acknowledging certain terroristic tactics - but that doesn't diminish its overall impact, nor does it in any way invalidate the important message that Loach is championing.
© 2001 James Berardinelli