‘Neruda’ and ‘Desierto’ Star Gael Garcia Bernal Talks Making Political Art in Troubled Time (Video)

‘Neruda’ and ‘Desierto’ Star Gael Garcia Bernal Talks Making Political Art in Troubled Time (Video)

TheWrap Magazine: “Worldwide, there is a feeling of brokenheartedness, and I hope we can incorporate a narrative and a perspective of goodwill and compassion,” actor...

Gael García Bernal, 11 years old, born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, was coming to the United States for the first time to visit relatives in San Diego.

The U.S. already “felt like another world,” he said — and when his relatives talked about the roads, it sent a thrill through him.

[...] was García Bernal’s introduction to the United States, long before he’d become an actor, before he’d star in “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Babel” and the Amazon series “Mozart in the Jungle,” before he’d find himself in this year’s “Neruda” and “Desierto,” which are representing Chile and Mexico in the Oscar foreign-language race.

[...] he’s at ease north of the border, comfortable in the land whose roads themselves once seemed so magical, whose culture seemed so dominant.

[...] Read: 'Gravity' Writer's 'Desierto' Trailer Finds Jeffrey Dean Morgan Hunting Mexican Immigrants (Video)

There’s not a single film, even the ones that will be Oscar nominated, that I think is better than ‘Neruda.'

That film, he added, was all about adventurous risks and artistic freedoms.

[...] you could not do this film in the studio system, because it is unpitchable.

While “Neruda” is dreamlike, Jonas Cuarón’s “Desierto” is all adrenaline; García Bernal plays a migrant worker trying to get to his family in the United States, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing a border vigilante who hunts down and shoots anyone trying to cross the border.

[...] “Desierto” is also a timely film, given the anti-immigrant fervor that surfaced during the presidential election and the threat of deportations that followed the election of Donald Trump.

“This film depicts the nightmare that happens when the rhetoric of hate is so established, so normalized that all you need is somebody pulling a trigger,” he said.

Some people try to remedy that through goodwill and empathy, and some people try to remedy it through resentment and a huge sense of inferiority.

Read original story ‘Neruda’ and ‘Desierto’ Star Gael Garcia Bernal Talks Making Political Art in Troubled Time (Video) At TheWrap