Central American migration emerged as boogeyman during the 2016 presidential campaign and it has reemerged as the same during the present 2024 presidential race. The Central American boogeyman sometimes rides caravans and sometimes rides solo, but it is always construed as a lurking illegal alien nightmarish specter. Clearly, the scenes that feature this character are constructed about us, not by us Central Americans. When we write our own narratives, the collective and/or individual accounts we tell are much more complex and infinitely smarter than what has been relayed about us by politicians, outsider media, and other perpetrators of the Central American boogeyman story.
When we write our own narratives, the collective and/or individual accounts we tell are much more complex and infinitely smarter than what has been relayed about us by politicians, outsider media, and other perpetrators of the Central American boogeyman story.
Enter Problemista (2024), a film written and directed by Julio Torres, a creative born in El Salvador best known for his role as a writer for Saturday Night Live and his co-creator, writer, and executive producer roles on HBO’s Los Espookys (2019–2022) and Fantasmas (2024– ).
Torres leaves the Central American boogeyman of mainstream politics in politicians’ bags of tricks and, instead, he presents viewers with a lucid account of a kid from El Salvador attempting to navigate the US immigration complex. The protagonist of the story, Alejandro (played by Salvadoran writer/director Torres himself), is hardly the Central American boogeyman of the political sphere. He is, instead, a figure who leads viewers on a surreal journey through the very real defective architectural design of the immigration complex.
The protagonist of the story, Alejandro (played by Salvadoran writer/director Torres himself), is hardly the Central American boogeyman of the political sphere.
Alejandro isn’t the Salvadoran boogeyman criminal, gangster, scammer, rapist, killer, or other monster touted on presidential campaign trails. He is, instead, a person with a story to tell about the invisible bureaucratic guard rails in the U.S. immigration complex. Through his character, it is painfully clear that obtaining the “right” documents isn’t as easy as career politicians make it out to be. As Torres himself explains in his March 2024 TIME article, this is the critical purpose of the film:
"What many people don’t realize is that navigating this system—and being a 'successful immigrant'— is a second job. You have to get relentlessly creative to fill the gaps in a broken system. The less money you have, the harder it is. The less of a safety net you have, the harder it is. If someone is undocumented, then the corridors of that maze get narrower and narrower. This complicated puzzle is equally not in your control and one that you keep having to figure out. It’s a game where the rules don’t add up, no one can rationally defend, and yet never changes."
The sequence that appears twenty minutes into Problemista (currently streamable on HBO Max) is one of the most visually arresting scenes about immigration to appear in contemporary Latinx film. It is memorable not because it is heartbreaking or particularly suspenseful, but because it visually captures the bureaucratic hurdles faced by little-documented and entirely undocumented immigrants every day in this country.
Note: Contains spoilers.
Opening with Alejandro trying to open the door leading to an adjacent room with a golden key sitting on a desk, the camera follows the protagonist as he climbs atop file cabinets to reach the drop ceiling, open a panel, and make his way into another identical room. From there, he opens panel after panel as the camera zooms out and reveals him trapped a maze of identical rooms endlessly opening panel after panel, nonetheless leaving him in the same spot, no matter how many passageways he crawls through and into as he attempts to get to the forever elusive golden key on the desk in the adjacent room.
The sequence is narrated by Isabella Rossellini whose disembodied voice informs viewers that there are rules to the game: Julio must find a sponsor for his work visa, then must submit it by paying lawyer and application fees totaling upwards of $6,000, and only then is he allowed to earn money, which he needs to pay in order to meet the fees entailed in an application to work and earn money. The narrator declares this to be an impossible maze to navigate, a message reinforced by the fully zoomed out shot of Alejandro opening panel after panel into room after room exactly like the ones he was in before (Figure 1).
For those who have been in that type of room, Alejandro’s impotency will be all too familiar. And, for those fortunate to have never experienced it, the visual and auditory navigation of the labyrinth brings the sense of infinite hurdles into focus.
Faced with this impossible puzzle, Alejandro is forced to make extraordinary decisions. He works (without pay) for Elizabeth, an eccentric art critic played by Tilda Swinton, whose whims fluctuate so dramatically that it is not clear until the very end if she will or will not submit the application affirming her sponsorship. Advised by his immigration lawyer to take money under the table, Alejandro accepts a series of questionable Craigslist ads and resorts to desperate measures when the cash that rolls in isn’t enough to keep him housed and while saving enough money for his immigration legal and application fees.
Knowing the concern that this situation might cause his mother, Alejandro shields her from the full knowledge of it. When in his most desperate moments, she sends $40, her son knows (just as viewers know) that the amount is hardly close to what he needs. Yet, it is this connection to his mother in El Salvador, emotionally sustains him as he navigates the impossible maze of the immigration complex. The world she created for him during his childhood in El Salvador are depicted as vibrant dreamscapes that directly contrast with the humiliating, condescending, and degrading experiences he encounters in the United States (Figure 2).
The result is a film that tells one story about Central American immigration while dialoguing with previous representations of immigration for the screen. It is at once a tribute to an El Salvador that has seldom—if ever—been depicted on film as well as a powerful entry in the archive of immigrant experiences that Latinx cinema has become. Equally groundbreaking is its unique screening of immigration sponsorship, a topic that has never been critiqued in cinema with a Central American voice and surrealist touch.
It is at once a tribute to an El Salvador that has seldom—if ever—been depicted on film as well as a powerful entry in the archive of immigrant experiences that Latinx cinema has become.
Problemista centers significantly on Alejandro’s relationship to his probable sponsor, Elizabeth, and for good reason. After all, she is the individual who holds absolute power over Alejandro as he strives to pleasure and fulfill every one of her wishes: from using the irrelevant FileMaker Pro program to catalog paintings to writing letters of apology on her behalf, from carrying a slew of paintings for her throughout New York, to worrying that his inability to drive (he doesn’t have a license, after all) will render his usefulness to her obsolete (Figure 3).
Alejandro must, at all times, show himself to be useful to her like no other assistant might be. Meanwhile, she walks and makes demands on him knowing full well that her signature is the only thing that can get him out of the impossible immigration complex maze.
Comments