These Movies Reveal the Horror, Heartbreak, and Humanity of Latino Laborers

This week's newsletter looks at labor issues through unexpected genres. For domestic workers in Latin America to immigrants in the U.S. and their children, the promise of economic mobility and the elusive American dream through hard work often comes up short. Carlos Aguilar shares a short film to watch on the big screen, a dark-humored drama to stream at home, and three horror movies that tussle with power dynamics and the exploitation of Latino laborers, whether immigrants or native-born.

Happy Watching,

— Vanessa

Known for her documentary work, the late Lourdes Portillo co-directed this black-and-white fiction short with Nina Serrano about Nicaraguan immigrants in 1970s San Francisco. As Irene (Vilma Coronado) tries to adapt to her new surroundings, her fiancé, who had gone missing after defying Nicaragua’s corrupt government, has arrived in the Mission District. Despite the often-stilted acting and forced dialogue, the drama is a time capsule engaging with the tug-and-pull between assimilation and nostalgia for a country in shambles.

Screening on July 31st at NY’s MOMA together with Latin American shorts and streaming on YouTube.

The acerbic humor that makes Sebastián Silva’s character study about a territorial housekeeper so devilishly entertaining is owed in great part to actress Catalina Saavedra. Her performance as Raquel, an employee overstepping professional boundaries in order to keep her job, is both charged with rage and underlined with profound hurt. Raquel has worked there for over two decades. Shouldn’t that mean something? The agile camera moves freely through the rooms as if the audience were an inhabitant witnessing the action firsthand.

Streaming on Tubi.

— By Carlos Aguilar

“Keep your head down. Know your place. Stay invisible,” is the warning buried in advice that Marco (Aaron Dominguez) gives his younger sister Sasha (Xochitl Gomez), as he drops her off on her first day babysitting for a wealthy white family in a gated community.

By this point, Colombian American filmmaker Felipe Vargas has already shown the audience that the suburban neighborhood where “Hive” takes place is a gruesome trap. But the mechanics are only revealed once Sasha and Marco become its next potential victims.

Sasha needs this job to save money for college. And it’s precisely that need that convinces her to take on a position that comes with spoiled children and entitled parents. Like countless gardeners, housekeepers, and nannies before her, she must appease her “benevolent” oppressors and appear grateful for the opportunity to serve them.

The unbalanced power dynamic is clear from the onset, but there’s something even more sinister at play here. When Sasha takes young Zaley (Victoria Firsova), the girl she’s responsible for, to a playground, the other children begin to behave strangely. They stay still for a moment and then move in unison as if ready to attack. Vargas’ use of sound design (especially the crackling of the children’s bones as they contort) adds to the uncanny, disorienting feeling of a colorful yet frightening picture of eerie normalcy.

Though at times over-the-top in the tone of the performances, “Hive” drives home the point that this place poisons the minds of the rich, turning them into vicious and mindless creatures threatening the lives of the have-nots. The entity that does this to them in turn feeds on the lives of their employees.

This visually homogenous and quite commonplace gated community seems to stand in for the United States at large, where the herd mentality that has taken hold of a segment of the population has created an exponentially more hostile environment for minorities. Only the playground offers a touch of color, yet that’s the most dangerous place within this residential enclave.

Marcos’ words purport that in order to survive in a world that caters to whiteness and wealth, where everyone else is disposable, you must dilute yourself and become docile. Harsh as that directive sounds, it’s clear that Marco’s distrust of employers likely comes from personal experience as a landscaper, or perhaps from what he’s seen his immigrant father endure (we only hear his voice once over the phone).

When Marcos and Sasha find themselves inside a terrifying underworld where a yellow goo oozes from the wounds of people who’ve been trapped there for a long time, it’s a bag of candies from their dad’s home country (presumably Mexico) that eventually becomes an effective weapon against the entity they must fight. It’s a sweet reminder that they must protect their dignity and that they are more than cheap labor.

“Hive” is the latest among a handful of recent films in which the horror spawns from how those who hold more economic power exploit the precariousness of working-class Latinos, whether undocumented or not, for their personal benefit. Even if “Hive” operates through a supernatural occurrence, the real monster is the dehumanization that underlies each interaction.

In the psychological horror “At the Gates” there are no fantastical boogeymen, but the threat of deportation lurks like a frightening presence.

Nico (Ezekiel Pacheco) and his housekeeper mother Ana (Vanessa Benavente), both undocumented immigrants from El Salvador, must stay inside the home of their white and wealthy bosses for fear of being arrested by immigration authorities. But as the days go by and the employers still expect Ana to fulfill her duties, Nico becomes suspicious about whether the family is protecting or imprisoning them. Tensions rise.