 |
Video Review |
 |
|
|
Video Review |
|
Last Updated 06/20/04
Email: robitai@our-town.com
Marilyn Robitaille
"Bread and Roses”
Actor Adrien Brody made history when he won the Academy award for best actor for his moving portray of Jewish pianist Wladislaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.” Brody is the only actor to win a Best Actor Oscar when nominated alongside four previous Oscar winners. In addition, his having won the honor at age 29 makes him the youngest actor ever to win the Best Actor Academy Award.
Until “The Pianist,” Brody’s acting hadn’t drawn much notice. His previous list of movies includes titles like “Love the Hard Way” and “Nothing to Lose,” movies that didn’t make it big at the box office.
One of Brody’s movies that did receive critical attention and a nomination at the Cannes Film Festival is “Bread and Roses.” If you compare Brody’s performance in “Bread and Roses” to the one in “The Pianist,” and you’ll see the progression, depth, and range of his talent.
Director Ken Loach has a way of infusing his films with life’s grittiness. He’s known for using real people as extras who live and understand the world that he’s attempting to deliver in his films. For “Bread and Roses,” Loach turned to the plight of minorities living in Los Angeles in the early 1990s, who suffered the consequences of low wages, no overtime pay, insurance, or sick days. Non-union contractors had undercut the janitors’ unions. Workers had little choice but to take the non-union jobs for miserable pay and no benefits. Loach picks up the story at the point when the union went militant.
Loach explained, “’Bread and Roses’ is about what it’s like to be an immigrant. And in Hollywood, by and large, they are not represented. It’s like the world of eighteenth or nineteenth century writers before Dickens, where the workers are invisible.”
Brody plays Sam, a passionate, young activist, who leads a group of janitors in a guerrilla campaign against their employers. Two sisters Maya (Pilar Padilla) and Rosa (Elpidia Carrillo) become involved the fight for the greater good. They have a lot to lose. The fight threatens their jobs; they have to combat angry fellow workers, and they risk expulsion from the country.
Most of the film’s energy derives from the group’s plotting and planning. It’s a long, hard journey for the workers since they’re battling corporate giants and a system long entrenched in the belief that minority labor comes cheap. Many of the workers, recently arrived from Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, don’t speak English and have to rely on hearsay for information about the progress of the campaign.
Brody taps into the essence of the conflict to create his character; this is David and Goliath. The movie’s climax sizzles because of Brody’s ability to orchestrate the scene. You’re pulling for all those janitors who have been rendered powerless in a world where the big money never trickles down.
Take a look at “Bread and Roses.” It tells an important story. Desperation and terrible working conditions shouldn’t ever be part of the landscape, but Goliath is still at large.
Rated “R” for strong language and brief nudity
Available in DVD and Video
This site has been visited 914 times.