MOVIE OF THE WEEK August 16, 2024: MOUNTAINS
The fact that change is inevitable doesn’t make it any easier to accept for many people — including construction worker Xavier (Atibon Nazaire), the character at the center of Monica Sorelle’s thoughtful, intimate drama Mountains. Even though he works on a crew that specializes in demolition, Xavier doesn’t realize that his own foundations are about to be rattled until it happens, and he must figure out what comes next for him and his family.
Xavier lives with his wife, Esperance (Sheila Anozier), and their adult son, Junior (Chris Renois), in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, a largely working-class enclave that’s home to many immigrants from Haiti, as well as other parts of the Caribbean. Xavier and Esperance speak Haitian Creole at home, and they, their friends, and their family members uphold the cultural and social traditions of their countries of origin. But the neighborhood is starting to change. Small older houses and churches are being knocked down to make way for mansions, businesses are closing, and even the people walking down the street look and sound different.
Combine those signs of gentrification with Junior’s clear inclination to embrace aspects of life in the United States that his parents find puzzling, and it’s all a lot for Xavier to absorb and figure out. He’s a solid, deliberate person who makes solid, deliberate choices — but that’s not always possible in a world that seems to be moving faster and faster all around him. He’s grounded by his family and their life together, but even that requires renegotiation as circumstances change.
Sorelle directs her cast confidently, eliciting genuine, natural performances and building empathy for the characters’ conflicts and challenges. The script she co-wrote with Robert Colom is spare but effective, giving the characters time and room to think and breathe, to interact with each other realistically and respond to events believably. The end result is a compelling slice-of-life story that clearly views its characters and setting with support and affection. — Betsy Bozdech
Team #MOTW’s comments:
Pam Grady: Miami’s Little Haiti is a vibrant, low-slung neighborhood of cozy bungalows, home to a tight-knit immigrant community. At least, it was. But now bulldozers reduce so many of those houses and even the local church to piles of rubble, to be replaced by things bigger, taller, more vertical as one character observes—mini-mansions and upscale condos for the moneyed whites moving in. Director and co-writer Monica Sorelle won the Someone to Watch Film Independent Spirit Award for this small, ultimately bruising drama focused on one family buffeted by these changes. While seamstress/school crossing guard Esperance (Sheila Anozier) finds happiness simply by being surrounded by her family, her demolition worker husband Xavier (Best Breakthrough Performance Indie Spirit nominee Atibon Nazaire) chafes at the tiny size of their house and has his eye on something bigger. After years of silently enduring racism and now the indignity of taking part in the destruction of his own community, he is questioning his sacrifices in coming to the US, particularly in light of a son, Junior (Chris Renois), an aspiring standup comedian, he simply doesn’t understand. Framed as a slice of life, Mountains builds into a devastating portrait of the high cost of gentrification inflicted on poor communities and one man’s growing anger and lacerating grief in the face of it.
Loren King This impressive directing debut from Monica Sorelle weaves a delicate family drama with a quietly incendiary indictment of gentrification and its inherent racism. Set in the immigrant enclave of Little Haiti in Miami, Mountains features powerful performances from Atibon Nazaire as Xavier, a demolition worker; Sheila Anozier as his seamstress wife Esperance; and Chris Renois as their twenty-something son Junior who’s struggling to break away by pursuing stand up comedy. It’s a finely etched, lived in family portrait. Mountains is a tender, leisurely paced character study about the changes happening to a specific place; at least until the ending, which has a gutting power that creeps up, hits hard and lingers long after the film ends.
Nell Minow: Director/co-writer Monica Sorelle brings us into a vibrant world, the neighborhood of Haitian immigrants near Miami, gorgeously filmed by Javier Labrador Deulofeu. Sheila Anozier is radiant as Esperance, who wears her headscarf and native dress at home and creates beautiful, lace-trimmed gowns for celebrations, but goes out into the world in generic American garb. The magnetic intimacy she creates with Atibon Nazaire as her husband, Xavier, is palpable. The family is in the middle of many relatable challenges: a young adult son who wants to follow his own dreams and refuses to learn his parents’ native language, the balance of identity and assimilation, and Xavier’s job demolishing the homes and even the church in his neighborhood to make room for upscale gentrification. All of the performances are excellent and Sorelle deftly handles the telling details and the grand themes in a really impressive debut.
Sherin Nicole Monica Sorelle’s Mountains is a window into daily life in Little Haiti, Miami. Inside it, we meet a family of three. The parents who quietly mourn dreams deferred, and their son who believes his dream can only be realized by pushing his culture away. Americanizing it. His struggle is mirrored in their neighborhood. Haitian immigrant families are being pushed out, their homes demolished and replaced. That is also where the film takes a stand; rebelling against that gentrification, that Americanization, of their spirits and urging them to hold tight to who they are. Which, ironically, has always been the American way.
Leslie Combemale Representations of Black love in cinema are essential to film history, and that includes diverse cultural expressions across American communities. The film Mountains, Haitian-American filmmaker Monica Sorelle’s exploration of gentrification and Haitians maintaining their culture and coexisting with other cultures in Miami, is really, at its core, about Black love. As such, it is often a beautiful and moving experience. Read full review.
Jennifer Merin Mountains, director/co-writer Monica Sorelle’s moody, beautifully realized drama. is about daily life and strife, community culture and intergenerational relationships and pursuit of the American dream in Miami’s Little Haiti, a working class residential neighborhood neighborhood where many West Indian families make their homes. The Haitian proverb “Dèyè mòn, gen mòn” (which translates to “Beyond every mountain, there’s another mountain”) captures the spirit of the film and explains its title. Mountains regales us with a lesson in humanity — one that we desperately need to learn. Read full review.
Sandie Angulo Chen: Mountains is a thoughtfully directed and beautifully acted family drama about a Haitian American family struggling with the American Dream, intergenerational tension, and the loss of community thanks to gentrification. Co-writer and director Monica Sorell’s feature debut captures a part of South Florida life I witnessed growing up in Miami — particularly the tension between Cuban Americans and other Caribbean immigrants, particularly Haitian Americans, who were marginalized within the area’s diverse community. The main character being a demolition worker tearing down homes in his own neighborhood may seem a little on the nose, but actor Atibon Nazaire gives a brilliant, nuanced performance as Xavier. This is a movie that makes you think and reflect on the complex issue of gentrification and the people it displaces.
Nikki Fowler: Monica Sorelle’s Mountains is a love letter to Little Haiti based on the real-life gentrification of a beautiful and culturally rich West Indian community in Miami. Due to its higher elevation, developers have locked in on pushing out a thriving safe space for old and new immigrants. Xavier’s family longs for a better way of life, including buying a newer and larger home with his seamstress and crossing guard wife and son who wants to acclimate into a modern society pursuing comedy and entertainment. Sorelle perfectly celebrates Haitian culture within the angst-filled drama as families are pushed out one by one, with Xavier feeling it the most as the construction company that’s demolishing homes is the one he tirelessly works for. From someone who has, not Haitian, but West-Indian family and ties and who has experienced Haitian culture from the West Indies to Little Haiti, I felt the depth and warmth in this film, and it will move you to understand the plight of immigrants and what it means to survive while delicately introducing you to the beauty of Haitian culture. With warm colors and a haunting score, the cast is phenomenal capturing the joy, love, pain and pride in community and family.
Liz Whittemore Mountains is a deliberately paced tale of intergenerational turmoil, a love story to inspire, an honoring of culture, and the crushing reality of gentrification. Filmmaker Monica Sorelle captures an intimate portrait of a family trying to thrive as individuals and a family. Our three leads deliver performances that feel so authentic one might think Mountains was a documentary. It is a quiet triumph. One that deserves attention come awards season.
Cate Marquis The title comes from a Haitian saying: “Beyond mountains are more mountains.” That seems to be what Haitian immigrant Xavier is facing in Mountains, director/co-writer Monica Sorelle’s soulful drama about daily life and struggles in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Xavier has been in the U.S. a long time since fleeing poverty in Haiti but he has not reached the American Dream he had hoped for. Still, he has made progress – he owns a little house and his job provides enough for his beloved wife Esperance and American-raised son Junior. Read full review.
FILM DETAILS:
Title: Mountains
Director: Monica Sorelle
Release Date: August 16, 2024
Running Time: 95 minutes
Language: English and Creole with English subtitles
Screenwriters: Monica Sorelle and Robert Colom
Lead Performers: Atibon Nazaire, Sheila Anozier, Chris Renois
Distribution Company: Music Box Films
AWFJ Movie of the Week Panel Members: Sandie Angulo Chen, Betsy Bozdech, Leslie Combemale, Nikki Fowler, Pam Grady, Loren King, Cate Marquis, Jennifer Merin, Nell Minow, Sherin Nicole, Liz Whittemore
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Edited by Jennifer Merin
