The Golden Dream (12A)

Directed by Diego Quemada-Diez

4/5

NOT since Gregory Nova’s El Norte (1983) has there been a successful Central American film dealing with the mass migration of Mayans seeking to escape from genocide, in this case from Guatemala.

The Golden Dream changes that and it’s significant that its Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez has lived in that country and is fully cognisant with the US-backed regime’s policy of genocide there.

Ironically, given the resurgence in Latin American cinema, Quemada-Diaz claims he has learned all he knows from British director Ken Loach’s films like Carla’s Song.

Imitating Loach, he’s recruited locals as actors, seeing in amateurs an authenticity that allows a collaboration to be created that’s closer to social reality and, in the film, fascism and mass poverty are symbolised by children fighting vultures as they search for scraps among the mountain of waste surrounding their shanty towns.

At its opening we see them fleeing from the security forces before we’re introduced to four who are seeking to escape north.

There’s Juan (Brandon Lopez), a rising hip-hop star, and his friend Sara (Karen Martinez), a street-theatre performer who cuts her hair and binds her breasts to appear as a boy. 

And there’s Samuel (Carlos Chajon) who for some reason is on an arduous trip while being plagued by ruthless bandits, the military and the border police. 

En route an element of rivalry is introduced after they encounter Chaulk (Rodolfo Dominguez), a member of the Tzotzil tribe, who proves to have skills they do not possess.

It’s a remarkably poignant political parable, set against an exodus which witnesses many tragedies, not least the millions of children queuing at the border, some of whom are shot by snipers.

As for those who make it, there’s the  usual fast-tracking to a menial and low-paid job that defines the never-ending process of the American Dream.