Film Screening: The Girl

Going to the film screening of The Girl with my friends would mark the first screening I ever attended at Hunter College. In short, the film was about a white woman from Texas who decided to smuggle Mexicans into the states in attempt to make money and hopefully provide that money for her son who she desires to regain custody of. However, she ended up having to look after one Mexican girl when her mother who crossed the river wound up drowning. Some things I took away were the long shots of the beautiful nature of Mexico and the contrast of cool and warm temperatures to add to the tone of certain scenes.

It was actually quite funny watching this in a group setting for two reasons. First, the film had spanish subtitles for english dialogue and no subtitles for the spanish dialogue, which was 75% of the movie. In other words, it was a DVD copy for a spanish speaking audience, but this audience was english speaking. So, everyone was stunned and we tried to change the settings. Secondly, the audience members stayed put through the WHOLE ENTIRE film and used context clues with the help of a few spanish speaking people next to them to figure out the movie. Who does that?!?! Luckily, I had been blessed with some of my own spanish speaking skills and got a general idea of what was going on.

The best part of the experience for me, was the discussion with the director himself, David Riker. He had no idea that we had a spanish speaking audience copy of it and was sincerely sorry. Riker said “you guys must of thought it was a political move or something of that sort,” since we were now trying to understand a new language like the Mexican immigrants have to. He was a super cool guy, well spoken and had plenty to say about the disasters of making the film. He told us story upon story on how he kept losing funding, couldn’t find the right white woman to cast (he had Emily Blunt as an option at first, but then she was booked for years as she became famous), and had trouble shooting at locations. In fact, in one shooting day a prop lady got hit in the ear by fireworks that accidentally went off and went to the emergency hospital. Everyone prayed for her and luckily she didn’t die. Basically the whole world was against him in making the movie, but he was tenacious and finally made the film. Honestly, after he explained it all, not only was I, and everyone in the audience, amazed at how well the film turned out, but also inspired to make my own movies and never give up on them.

At the end of the event, my friend who I invited thanked me and said we should go to more film screenings….and that we will do.