There are many jobs in America that make the world a poorer place. However, most people continue to work in those jobs. In her debut film, Mountains, filmmaker Monica Sorelle tries to explain how to swallow that bitter pill. The film follows Xavier (Atibon Nazaire), a Haitian worker who participates in the gentrification of his own neighborhood.
After a more low-key festival run, the Tribeca discovery gets a limited premiere in New York and LA, but not before a theatrical release in Miami — the film’s setting and Sorelle’s birthplace. That hometown pride is palpable in “Mountains,” which exudes an undeniable truthfulness and compassion. Its narrative, however, proves less insightful: It’s too cautious to penetrate the protagonist’s troubled psyche, softening the film’s legitimate political anxieties into sympathetic messages that seem dull and preordained.
Like many American immigrants, gentle giant Xavier aspires to provide a better life for his family. His wife Esperance (Sheila Anozier) is a passionate seamstress and a fantastic cook. She buys into Xavier’s smug talk about saving for a bigger house, although she seems quite happy with their current home. Their son Junior (Chris Renois) has other ambitions. While his parents converse in Haitian Creole, Junior speaks mostly in English, especially when he can’t explain why he keeps leaving the house during dinner – a source of increasing anxiety and frustration for his father.
Trouble is brewing, but for Sorelle, it’s paradise. The filmmaker depicts the family’s life at home in lavish splendor, his direction careful to give life enough room to breathe. This effort is evident in the colorful interiors, the patient rhythm of certain tasks, and the deliberate, hushed tone of conversations. The immigrant household is considered sacred, and sacred things are often threatened.
In contrast to the style of many American independent films, DP Javier Labrador often eschews handheld cameras in Mountains, instead favoring sturdy, still compositions. This approach lends a staid calm to the film’s domestic side. Yet this eerie visual balance also fits the way Xavier indifferently compromises with insidious market forces. On the job, the man dons a hard hat and construction jacket—not to build up his neighborhood, but to tear it down. His longtime demo crew is now awaiting permits before swooping down like vultures on abandoned houses, flattening them to make way for newer (but not necessarily prettier) ones.
For the most part, Mountains stays by Xavier’s side, vacillating between work and home. As the lead, Nazaire is such a convincing, unselfconscious screen presence that it takes a while to realize that the film’s politely constructed relationships aren’t progressing at all. The script frustratingly discourages the stoic character from self-reflection without explaining in detail why (class anxiety or old-fashioned male stubbornness are possible explanations).
Whether he’s mediating a dispute between a co-worker and a racist Nepo employee or demanding that his college-dropout son stay home for dinner, Xavier seems compelled to maintain the status quo throughout his life, believing that trusting the process will serve him in the end. Maurelle and co-writer Robert Colom don’t view this pattern of behavior as something that needs to be thoroughly contextualized or even considered; rather, it’s meant to be broken—and not until the very end of the film. The story stumbles from one point to another before building toward an ending with Xavier suddenly considering the prospect of having had enough. The story arc is fast-paced and painfully awkward.
One narrative twist makes an impact, however, when Mountains follows Junior out of the house and reveals that he moonlights as a stand-up comedian. His act draws crowds, but his jokes aren’t very well thought out: He propagates stereotypes about immigrant parents being killjoys. The sequence, placed nearly halfway through the running time, represents an unexpected and welcome expansion beyond the film’s narrow focus on Xavier’s conflicted lifestyle and his failure to recognize it.
Through the content of his comedy performance, Junior’s cynicism about his heritage becomes more apparent. And it raises a thorny question: Is it really worth badmouthing your immigrant parents behind their backs to appease a crowd of giggling Miami transplants? As with the rest of the film, Sorelle holds back on much judgment here. But it’s no coincidence that it’s in this seedy open mic, a setting where the filmmaker steps outside her loving comfort zone, that Mountains becomes more poignant and lasting.
