User reviews

Confused by the earlier review here, but for those of us on US shores that are intimate with the profound import of Ellis Island to this country, it's a touching tribute to those who were hoping for a better life but were either quarantined or turned away, and reflects on the continuing struggles of immigrants today as well. The enigmatic French artist JR evokes an unsettling portrait of the ghosts of the Ellis Island Hospital complex, abandoned for over 60 years and rarely granted public access, and Robert DeNiro, in a refreshing contemporary serious turn, deftly narrates and embodies the travails of one particular immigrant as we travel through the crumbling hallways and cracked windows of the past. A perfect subject and location for a short film, and a heartfelt homage to not only the US but the universal immigration experience. It's only 15 minutes, and it's free. Watch it.

For a short time in the late 1970s the government allowed the public to tour parts of the decaying buildings on Ellis Island. This was before some parts were spruced up for visitors as they are today. I was one of the few fortunate to be able to take the tour, and it gave a very profound look into the sadness and terror the island represented to so many. This film very ably conveys the feelings they must have experienced.

I am a student of New York history, especially that related to its Port and the significance of all in it. I recommend this short film because it certainly gives a very insightful look at Ellis Island.

Ellis (2015)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert DeNiro narrates and is featured in this short film, which is a tribute to Ellis Island. Basically we see DeNiro walking around and narrating his story of an immigrant and what happened to him on the island.

At just fifteen-minutes this is a pretty good short that works on many levels. Technically the film is extremely impressive and especially the cinematography by Andre Chemetoff. The camera-work is really some of the best that I can remember from any recent movie because it pulls you into the story but it also manages to make you float into the past where the narration is talking about.

DeNiro is also in fine form here as the narrator. Eric Roth's screenplay is direct with its words and there's no question that the film works as a tribute as well as having something to say about immigration. DeNiro manages to turn in a tender performance as he tells the story of one man, his dreams and his outcome.

If you have read "L'Uomo in Frac" you are going to squirm a bit at what looks a lot like plagiarism. I am no expert on the law but it seems a bit nasty to rip off another artist as the press has noted may have occurred with this film.

On the film itself, I have to agree with the several other reviewers here who find it problematic. It is entirely fictionalized and gives a poor representation of process at Ellis Island when it was operating. EG The hospital area was for a tiny, very small fraction of a percentage of immigrants who had serious diseases, mostly communicable disease at a time before antibiotics or much in terms of vaccines etc. The disease people were held or sent back for were permanent lifetime disabilities, and permanent profound lifetime threats to public health including pandemic type disease.

A far as the rest of the rumination of Di Niro during the 15 minute film, Eliis island was not comparable to todays immigration issues. Not one iota. Yes the *immigrants* themselves were not so different, but the US was very different as was the world economy. They did not change but we, the US changed. The US needed low skilled and unskilled labor, where demand was increasing at profound rates -- while today demand for unskilled and low skilled labor keeps dropping in the US. The amount of taxpayer funded social benefits re also profoundly higher today

the entire point of Ellis island and two or three smaller centers like it was focusing all immigration in a handful of entry points. This is very different than having thousands of miles of open border.

Also the US had a very strong assimilationist culture which was part of the well understood agreement with incoming immigrants. The peer reviewed work on immigrants shows less and less have a feeling of loyalty toward the US, less and less want to think of themselves as Americans. Ellis Immigrants had to renounce their loyalty to their former country. Heck today a major of Latin American immigrants maintain dual citizenship, vote in both countries (thereby diluting and disenfranchising native born voters).

Lastly the imagery of Ellis is severely cherry picked. Ellis Island had millions and million sin restoration work. This film picked one or two out of the many buildings that were not restored, which is why the film would look completely unrepresentative to the millions of tourists who have visited Ellis Island since it was mostly restored

For fragments of photos on walls, windows, on floor, for comentary, for story itself , about a boy rejected to live in Unired States and hiding for not be discovered, for Robert de Niro as a sort of wittness and as the perfect option as only living presence in the empty, ruined building, for hommage to people who, at Ellis Island, were at beginning of new life , for the last comentary, it is an admirable poem.

Hommage to hopes, sacrifices, expectations, it has as basic tool to impress the lectures of viewer or the stories of family . Or his experience.

A remember, in same measure.

And a story reminding , in some meassure, Alessandro Baricco and Giuseppe Tornatore The Legend of 1900.