Review of The Film Mountains by Monica Sorelle
Beyond Mountains There Are Mountains
“Dèyè mòn gen mon” (Beyond mountains there are mountains) - Haitian proverb
The film Mountains opens with a shot of Xavier, a Haitian demolitionist, as he watches an excavator eviscerate a quaint little flat. Although the metal beast is only a few feet away blasting through boards and tearing through shabby windows, Xavier has the solemn mien of a consummate professional; the look of someone numb to the devastation. We later learn that he and his company is paid to demolish homes and historical landmarks in Little Haiti. They’re paid to pave the way for something and someone new. And although we never meet the people who will live on this freshly decimated land, it is easy to infer.
The work of a demo-man is back-breaking, thankless. Although Xavier’s coworkers are man-children prone to temper tantrums, and his boss is a petty, anti-black tyrant, he never lets his professionalism slip. He keeps his head down, does his job without complaint, and even mediates when he must. His stoicism and diplomatic nature make him the perfect worker but when he gets home he lets the mask slip.
And why you gon’ be truthful with me when you lie to everybody else. You lied when you smiled at that cracker there on the job, right? - Nikki Giovanni on Love In Conversation with Baldwin
When Xavier is with his wife, he becomes tender, playful, and a bit boyish in his mannerisms and charm. His eyes light up when he sees her, and hers light up when she sees him. Though their relationship is not without fault, they do fight about money from time to time, their bond is unquestionable. But when their son Junior, walks into the home, Xavier tightens up, puts away his playful ways, and becomes the worst version of himself. Authoritative, rough, and emotionally distant.
Junior, a college dropout, becomes a target for his father’s repressed anger because he has not yet embraced the typical hallmarks of manhood. He’s well into his twenties, living with his parents, and sneaking out late at night to perform at comedy clubs that barely even pay. He has no wife, no mortgage, no nine to five. He’s trapped in the same catch-22 that plagues his generation, untethered from the material world, but also fiercely dependent on his folks for survival.
Esperance, Xavier’s wife, then embraces the role of mediator between the two. While she may agree with her husband that Junior is a bit aimless, and needs some financial stability, she approaches him with the tenderness that he deserves, rather than with the authoritative tone her husband sees fit. She often reminds Xavier how much the two of them are alike in both temperament and ambition. Xavier fails to listen to her advice at first, but much later, when his own dreams fail to materialize, he internalizes her prescient observations.
Much of the film revolves around the family as they all reconcile their dreams with their increasingly precarious financial situation. Every moment comes to be defined by labor and the stress it brings. Every step forward comes with two steps back. A bill is paid, a problem is solved, a mountain is climbed, but when they look beyond the horizon, they only see more mountains.
But in between hardship we’re blessed with these many tiny, brilliant vignettes of family life. Dominos violently crash down on a picnic table as Xavier and his cousins discuss politics. Esperance and her husband hold each other close under the sienna dusk sky and whisper about their future. At night, the whole neighborhood joins in on a spontaneous march down the street where they dance and laugh and forget themselves. Hardship remains on the horizon, but the people of Little Haiti refuse to yield. In Monica Sorelle’s directorial debut, she shows us that the spirit and will of the Haitian people is as boundless as the mountain range that lay before them.
