Cesar Chavez

We live on the edge of a time when mass movements could once again become decisive. Cesar Chaves, Diego Luna's latest film, reminds us that heart is what empowers people to overcome injustice.

Luna has picked a fabulous cast and a respectable script that brings to life the immense story of a very intense struggle to give farmworkers the basic right to organize. Filmed where the real events took place, Luna captures the stark,windswept and washed out beauty of the vast Southern San Joaquin Valley. He shows us the faces of the people who toil so that we might live. Through a strong performance by John Malkovich, Luna captures the patriarchal mentality that allows one to exploit others to build wealth. This sparks outrage and one is moved to identify with the Chaves and the small brave band that he led.

Michael Pena as Chaves is believable and endearing because the methodical, measured intensity of the man comes through and when moments of rage and deep emotion well up in his character the contrast is riveting. You understand why people followed. But it is the women that I found most interesting, particularly America Ferrera as Helen Fabela Chaves. And without Dolores Huerta (Rosario Dawsom) he could not have succeeded. She was the more politically adept. It was the women in his life that empowered him to be great.

The film is not flawless and the 101 minute running time is the key problem. The story is simply too big given the number of compelling characters and the complexities of the real events. I longed to understand more about his son, his brother, the growers, Huerta and Helen. I would have appreciated seeing more of the power struggles among leaders, which must exist within any movement.

But overall, I am pleased that Luna, his cast and crew respectably brought to the cinema this very American story that helps me to remember why I love this country. Social movements do make progress despite darker forces because valiant hearts bonded by the vision of a better world do not give up.

This movie was as accurate and as realistic as it could be when packing many years of struggle into 100 minutes. There are many lessons to be learned from La Causa. I just hope that young people see it, learn from it and connect it to today's struggles.

Some uninformed people may feel that Michael Pena's acting is weak..that couldn't be further from the truth. Pena portrayed Cesar the way he was...soft-spoken and undramatic. That was the amazing thing.. Cesar Chavez was driven by his passion for justice. He was not a politician. He was not an eloquent public speaker. Yet he inspired millions to boycott, march, strike, struggle because his cause was so moral, so real, so grass roots.

Cesar Chavez was very warmly received during its North American Premiere at Austin's SXSW Film where it won one of the audience awards. Director Diego Luna has done an excellent job in bringing this important and often poorly understood civil right and labor leader to life for a new generation. Michael Pena delivers his best acting performance to date as he really seems to capture the essence of Chavez. The film is reminiscent of other films about leading social organizers such as Milk which is also set in California in about the same time period. The film focuses on the major events of his organizing including the boycott of grapes which eventually forced the grape growers to reach an agreement with the United Farm Workers (UFW). The film also emphasizes his dedication to the cause of non-violence and his efforts to work across ethnic lines. While all such films are imperfect vehicles for encapsulating an individual's life, I felt this one did solid job of capturing the spirit of Cesar Chavez. It also showed the difficulties his work caused for his family. I think this film could be very valuable as an educational tool for teaching young people about the legacy of Cesar Chavez. I hope that it is gains some popularity with mainstream audiences.

Would it be weird to say that "Cesar Chavez" was a laugh riot? Well, for a film which depicts people being beaten and sprayed with pesticides, the script contained tons of laugh out loud lines of dialogue. OK, I'm not sure if that came off as completely insensitive or not, so I'll just move on:

An independent production directed by Mexican actor/filmmaker Diego Luna, "Cesar Chavez" is an educational partial biography of (you guessed it) Cesar Chavez which chronicles his participation in the California (and abroad) civil rights campaigns during the 1960's, which addressed fair wages and better working conditions for migrant farm workers, his infamous 25 day hunger strike and the UFWA (United Farm Workers of America) grape boycott.

While I did find myself really enjoying this movie, "Cesar Chavez" is yet another example of a PG-13 film which attempts to depict a rated-R snapshot of American history. On a technical level, Luna does display above average directorial chops and his film is overall more historically weighty than something like last year's "42" (a PG-13 movie which glossed over many of the more violent atrocities of racial intolerance in the 1940's) it is obvious that Luna does pulls some punches in an attempt to make the Cesar Chavez story accessible to a wider audience.

There are good biopics and there are bad biopics. The downfall of many biopics is that they take fascinating characters and simply tell their story, while failing to bring their world to life, failing to spark interest with an engaging back-story or failing to build an emotional connection with audiences. And while those types of biopics may be interesting to some, they usually alienate those who didn't live through the events or may not be familiar with said character. Luna and Michael Pena, who plays Chavez, seem to understand this, as they come together to depict a Chavez that is completely 3 dimensional and complex. That said, Luna does not escape my praise without scrutiny, as he and screenwriters Keir Pearson (Hotel Rwanda) and Timothy J. Sexton (Children of Men) fail to give Chavez much of a back-story; so much so that it feels as though "Cesar Chavez" is missing its entire first act (the story of how Chavez started down the civil rights road to begin with).

Pena's performance stands as one of the more surprisingly pleasant aspects of this production. He nails the Chavez look and mannerisms, and when he speaks he sounds like a civil rights leader. And during the fasting sequences, Pena looks like a man who hasn't eaten for a substantial amount of time. Although quite enjoyable in other movies such as "End of Watch" and "30 Minutes or Less", his role as Chavez is by far my favorite.

Final Thought: This shouldn't be a movie which only resonates with those who lived through the events, but if you have no idea who Chavez was going into this, for you the timeline may get a little choppy in the final act and questions may be raised about Rosario Dawson's purpose in this movie since Dolores Huerta (a woman who played a massive role in La Causa) is hardly referenced here. Then again, if you are a Californian and don't know who Cesar Chavez was, you should be ashamed of yourself to begin with. After recently sitting through a stretch of shockingly below average movies depicting the Mexican/Mexican-American/Chicano struggle (Filly Brown, For Greater Glory and A Better Life) I will say that I was quite entertained by this good, not great, biopic which salutes this important man and equally important moment in relatively recent California history.

Director Diego Luna's picture does more than recount historic events or an epic period in our nation's history. It is more than a moving—and true—David versus Goliath story.

Cesar Chavez the film does portray the classic battle between farm workers and one of California's richest industries. But it also captures the personal hardships and sacrifices made by Cesar and his family, and by so many other families.

And it captures the spirit and humanity and complexity of a man who, in Cesar's words, taught ordinary people to do extraordinary things—and in so doing inspired millions of others from all walks of life to social and political activism.