Mountains

Every afternoon, as Xavier (Atibon Nazaire) pulls into his driveway after work, one of his neighbors, like clockwork, walks by his home talking on his cell phone. Sometimes they greet each other, others they simply perform this unspoken, synchronized ritual we can assume has happened for years. Each instance of this interactions is shot from the same angle to visually reaffirm the notion of a treasured routine—which becomes even more noticeable when absent. Partly a tribute to the routine occurrences that collectively make a place feel like one belongs, Monica Sorelle’s delicately galvanizing slice-of-life debut “Mountains,” set in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood, overflows with such details.

Reserved but never one to stand for injustice, Xavier finds himself in a compromised position as he works demolishing properties that will be turned into luxury homes not intended to house locals. The operations have gotten too close to his own doorstep for comfort. Nearby, a new, more spacious home for sale catches his eye. Could it be time for a new start? Without calling much attention to them, the filmmaker makes clear who the desired prospects to inhabit it are, and they certainly don’t look or sound like Xavier and his wife Esperance (a radiant Sheila Anozier), both working-class immigrants from Haiti.

Picking up gossip along the way, Esperance walks around the neighborhood exchanging pleasantries with people who have for long been fixtures in her life, just as she has been one in theirs. But for as much Sorelle and cinematographer Javier Labrador Deulofeu revel in immortalizing the colorful, lived-in streets of this community, she also engages with the nagging feeling of impermanence all immigrants share, being in another country while thinking about the one left behind. For Xavier, the bridge between him and Haiti is a radio program on news from his embattled Caribbean homeland. The body language and stoic demeanor of Nazaire (an actor who’s previously had small roles in TV and film) transmit an imposing fortitude, and at times inflexibility, while still allowing for gentleness.

Sorelle’s “Mountains” joins other recent American productions such as “On the Seventh Day,” about Mexican immigrants from the state of Puebla in New York, or “Menashe,” following a Hasidic Jewish father, that document ethnic enclaves existing parallel to the country’s mainstream society where life often unfolds in a language other than English. These universes full of stories refuse to be homogenized into an indistinct mass, straddling a degree of inevitable assimilation with a resilient conviction to maintain their identity.

Though “Mountains” spends most of its time grappling with the quiet worries of its immigrant characters, Sorelle eventually turns to their son Junior (Chris Renois), an aspiring standup comedian still living at home whose chosen career path doesn’t align with what Xavier envisioned for him. His perspective on his parents’ rigid mindset, and how it clashes with the idea of pursuing one’s “dreams,” enrich this layered appreciation of this household, a proxy for countless others in any diaspora. The perceptive writer-director further balances the scales through a scene where Xavier himself is looked down on by his wealthy brother-in-law for what the latter deems a lack of ambition. That Sorelle’s co-writer Robert Colom is Cuban may contribute to the honesty on display when Xavier’s Cuban boss utters openly racist remarks about him and another Black employee, confirming such attitudes prevail even among groups that have more in common than not.

Soon, corporate vultures, eager to buy homes for cheap, begin to circle the family, banking, likely, on how unwelcoming the new developments will make the area for the immigrant population. What’s more insidious is that they tacitly force those who live there to partake in their own displacement: when Xavier and Esperance attend the open house for the residence they dream of owing, the person assisting the agent whispers to them in Creole—she is also of Haitian descent—not as a reassuring gesture, but with an undertone of condescension that Esperance doesn’t appreciate. Slowly, their acquittances will be replaced with people new to the neighborhood who act is if it has always belonged to them.  That’s how gentrification operates, turning spaces that once held significance for the marginalized into bland playgrounds for outsiders who can afford them. It’s a mentality of ruthless appropriation with no interest in fostering community. The strength of Sorelle’s storytelling hinges on how she divulges these points not in verbose dialogue or force confrontations, but through the ambivalent emotions that coat all human drama.

There, among the ruins of a vibrant community under siege, Xavier stands tall taking claim to the place where he’s built a life, humble and hard-fought but his and his family’s. To leave would mean to migrate again, to be uprooted and stripped from any semblance of home, all for the benefit of neo-colonizers whose economic prowess inflicts pain guised as opportunity. Xavier’s mere presence means resistance, as do the boisterous sounds of his people’s festivities and of their language. And though the bulldozers may rip windows and walls apart, it’s the intangible that’s unmovable. They, indeed, can’t move mountains. 

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