GOLDEN DOOR (Nuovomondo)

With a minimum of talk and unforgettable images, Golden Door is a stirring, sometimes shocking portrayal of one family's immigration experience at the turn of the 20th century. Like most Americans, I come from immigrants—a combination of Danish, Swedish, and Welsh folks—and I know for sure that a handful of the Swedes definitely came through Ellis Island not too far from the period portrayed in this film. Golden Door's family may be rural Italian, but their bigger picture story is one that has been repeated all through modern history as a decision is made to uproot oneself from the land of one's birth, and to risk everything hoping for a better life.

Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato) is the brooding yet sensible head of his family. He climbs a mountain barefoot with his teenage son, and they receive a sign from God that finalizes their decision to go to America. The sign? A tourist photo-postcard from America showing people holding giant vegetables. Yes, these people are VERY rural. When Salvatore uproots his sons and his mother and goes to the port city to catch a ship, the sensory overload is astonishing not just for the family, but for the viewer who has been lulled into comfort with wide-open, sparsely populated vistas. But America is the land of plenty, and they have their minds set.

During their journey across the sea, a mysterious Englishwoman named Lucy (the always lovely Charlotte Gainsbourg) is introduced into their lives. She latches on to the Mancusos, Salvatore in particular, in order to secure her entrance to the United States. From experience, we learn, Lucy knows that she has to be married or at least betrothed to a man in order to immigrate. Via a slow dance of curiosity on the ship, Lucy convinces Salvatore to promise to marry her so that she can get through the red tape of customs.

This movie was a wonderful surprise that came out of nowhere for me. The story itself is rather compact, taking place from the moment the family leaves their hometown, to their arrival and inspection at Ellis Island. The film offers a vivid peek at the crazy bravery these folks must have had in order to embark on such a bold journey. The living conditions on the ship are crowded and uncomfortable, there are clashes of culture and communication, even from people from the same country, and then there are the humiliations that the prospective immigrants face when they finally arrive to their destination.

One image in the film stunned me with its beautiful simplicity: The massively crowded ship pulls slowly away from the massively crowded dock in Italy. The crowds on both sides are completely silent as the people on the ship literally and symbolically pull away from their old lives and countries, leaving a chasm in their wake. It is beautiful and heartbreaking, considering the era where long-distance travel was a once-in-a-lifetime journey. According to the DVD extras, director Emanuele Crialese actually had this scene storyboarded from the start, knowing how powerful it would be. Golden Door is an excellent portrayal of immigrants in general, and how their spirit and optimism helped shape the myth and the reality of the United States.