By Jeffrey Sipe and Nina Rodriguez
Co-directed by Mexican filmmakers Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, “Home is Somewhere Else” covers ground that is well-known to Latin American filmmakers working in both feature and documentary films: the emotional reality of Mexicans making a home illegally “over there,” and the struggles with identity, self-definition, and pigeon-holing by others that are inherent in the experience. “Home is Somewhere Else” is an animated documentary that brings new perspectives and moving insights into the souls of those caught between two cultures and two countries both joined and separated by a literal line in the sand.
“This generation or this identity that was created by the migration of our parents that took us over there and also by the oppressive laws of the U.S. which separate you in a different way,” said Jose Eduardo Aguilar, who voices the film’s narrator, El Deportee, and whose real-life story of growing up in Utah makes up one of the film’s segments. “We kind of got stuck over there, in the U.S., with this lack of mobility between both of our spaces, both of our countries. So, you’re neither from there nor here, we’re bicultural but we’re not binational, we don’t have two nationalities.”
“Home is Somewhere Else” comprises three 25-minute stories narrated in their own words by the main character in each story. More than a litany of the practical difficulties of living as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S., the three segments focus more on the emotional malaise that envelops those who are from here, there, and then sometimes seemingly nowhere. They live in between two worlds where they are never wholly accepted and often live the existence of an outsider in their own minds.
As each of the three segments depict characters in different straits at different times of their lives, the animation style also changes in each segment. The opening story is drawn largely with crayons, reflecting the reality of main character, Jasmine, an elementary school student who is fighting to keep herself and her parents in the U.S. through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program designed to allow people illegally brought to the U.S. by their parents at a very young age to remain in the only country they have ever known.
In the second segment, two sisters who grew up together in the U.S. now communicate via cell phone as one sister has returned to Mexico while the other weighs her options north of the border. The animation is far more sophisticated in its execution and far more surreal as it visually brings together the sisters through the magic of animation as they deal with the hard realities of both separation and young adulthood.
The final story follows El Deportee from his arrival as a young boy in Utah until he ultimately finds himself forced to return to Mexico. The graphics are for more traditional, with scenes and characters drawn in a realistic manner—until El Deportee takes on his rap persona. Then it has a hip hop graffiti vibe.
The three stories are all unique but similar in their characters’ cultural and geographical disconnects. More than that, hovering over all characters in all the stories is the constant and unnerving threat of detention and deportation. Fathers go to work and come home a year later. Family members disappear and are not seen again until they are back in Mexico. A Mexican woman raised, educated, and working in the U.S. cannot open a business herself because she has no documents. And yet, she battles on.
It is an old story with a new twist delivered not just through the animation but through the words and narration of those who lived the events. It is infused with the spirit, the strength, and the humanity of those whose lives are depicted here, and the thousands, if not millions, of others who similarly persevere.
Having premiered at the world’s preeminent animation and documentary festivals, the film receives its theatrical release in Mexico this weekend. Compartimento Cinematografico will host a special outdoor screening of “Home is Somewhere Else” in San Miguel de Allende to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
