Word: rosa
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...There were a lot of jokes where he appeared foolish or lacking strong character," says Rosa Maria Calaf, assistant bureau chief of Spanish national television's New York Bureau. "Those have completely disappeared." The common thinking today is that as prince Juan Carlos could not risk his position as successor to assure his critics. "He was playing a role," says Calaf, adding. "He didn't want to appear as a danger to the [Franco] regime...
Their arrival in Los Angeles marks a temporary triumph of optimism; Enrique becomes a waiter in a posh restaurant; Rosa finds work first in a garment factory (where she sees models "Just like in a magazine!") and then as housemaid to an amusingly prim matron who unsuccessfully tries to teach her how to operate a computerized washer-dryer...
Good fortune quickly ebbs, however, leaving illness and betrayal in its wake. Against the new background noise of blaring radios and L.A. street life, Enrique and Rosa slowly catch on to the different, yet equally ruthless, code of lower-class life in "El Norte." The city's glamorous women look tired and aloof throughout the film, but Rosa only begins to notice this towards the end. On her deathbed, after listening to her brother's cheery forecasts for their future, she finally breaks down and sobs, "Life here is very hard. We're not free...
...soaked with relevance and insight. The spareness of El Norte's storyline never lapses into maudlin simplicity; on the contrary, it only fosters depth. The straightforward courage of its central figures (ingenuously portrayed by unknown actors) accentuates the tragedy of their fates. "All things are lent to us," Rosa chants at her father's funeral, an astonishingly forgiving utterance, given the circumstances. But it is precisely such humility and understatement that imbues the story with disturbing conviction...
...credibility of this tragic saga resides largely within the yawning disparity between its protagonists' ideals and the un-rosy urban reality with which Americans are only too familiar. While watching Enrique and Rosa crawl for miles through a tunnel to reach America, the viewer cannot help but shake his head over their delight upon spotting the light at the end. The odds are stacked miserably against them; but unaware of this fact, the two march almost inexorably toward despair...