Abstract
This paper examines Gregory Nava's film El Norte (1983), discussing the migration of Latin American people and its problems, such as their memory and nostalgia for their hometown, after moving to the so-called paradise-the North, or the United States of America.
El Norte talks about how a Native American brother and a sister undertaken a dangerous trip to stow away to the North, after their father died in an insurrection and their mother was imprisoned. This movie focuses on their unfavourable turnaround in life and the odyssey in that imaginary paradise. Gregory Nava tried to deploy magic realism in El Norte to represent the world between the dream and the reality. While presenting the protests and pains of labor workers, he also uses a great variety of symbols to retrace the indigenous civilization.
Nava's film El Norte, one of the most representative Chicano movies in the 1980s, has penetrated into the essence of Mayan mythology and its legend. This paper draws a parallel between the collective trauma and conscience of the Latin American immigrants as well as the representation of indigenous and catholic culture and analyzes the ways in which the cineaste has tried to reveal these themes via moving images and symbolism.
El Norte talks about how a Native American brother and a sister undertaken a dangerous trip to stow away to the North, after their father died in an insurrection and their mother was imprisoned. This movie focuses on their unfavourable turnaround in life and the odyssey in that imaginary paradise. Gregory Nava tried to deploy magic realism in El Norte to represent the world between the dream and the reality. While presenting the protests and pains of labor workers, he also uses a great variety of symbols to retrace the indigenous civilization.
Nava's film El Norte, one of the most representative Chicano movies in the 1980s, has penetrated into the essence of Mayan mythology and its legend. This paper draws a parallel between the collective trauma and conscience of the Latin American immigrants as well as the representation of indigenous and catholic culture and analyzes the ways in which the cineaste has tried to reveal these themes via moving images and symbolism.
| Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-36 |
| Number of pages | 36 |
| Journal | 英美文學評論 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |