Walk, don’t run, to catch ‘I Carry You With Me’ and ‘Summer of Soul.’
The hauntingly beautiful neodocumentary “I Carry You With Me,” a saga about a gay Mexican couple trying to make a new life in America, is not an easy movie to classify — which is exactly what the filmmakers had in mind. Suffice it to say, the film is a lyrical meditation on loneliness, immigration, homophobia and the emotional price that comes with following one’s dreams.
There have been documentaries that have used brilliant recreations in which the actors bring a documentary subject’s story to life. But “I Carry You With Me” takes this narrative conceit one step further: It not only features re-creations with flashbacks of their own but also scenes in which the real-life subjects are basically playing themselves in a different part of the story.
If this sounds confusing, sometimes it is. But most of the time, the effect is exhilarating: a surreal concoction that packs a considerable punch in the final moments.
The story begins in 1994 in Puebla, a beautiful Mexican colonial city that has fallen on tough economic times — not the most hospitable place for the closeted Iván (Armando Espitia, solid), who is stuck in a tough dishwashing job despite graduating from culinary school. His dreams of being a top chef take an even bigger detour when he meets the love of his life, Gerardo (Christian Vazquez), a handsome teacher whose family is even more homophobic than Iván’s folks.
Eventually, Iván’s estranged wife finds out about Gerardo, and she intends to keep Iván away from their son. So Iván, at wit’s end, decides to sneak over into the United States, hoping to get a real cooking job, save money for his kid and in short order come back to Mexico (and Gerardo) in pursuit of his higher culinary interests.
Needless to say, things get complicated — and Iván’s life will never be the same.
Director Heidi Ewing spins a narrative from three different time frames: Iván and Gerardo’s childhood; Iván and Gerardo during their courtship as 20somethings; and the real-life Iván and Gerardo navigating the difficulties of their current-day lives. All these sections are exquisitely crafted, even if the back-andforth between eras occasionally gets jarring, and even if we want the characters to be more deeply drawn. This is a project that could have been a multipart series.
Ewing, though, more than saves the day by entrancing us with beautiful details of Mexican life and delivering evocative, heartfelt impressions that get under our skin. Her final sequence, which explains the title, is a breathtaking piece of cinema. Without an ounce of the polemic, she offers a vivid perspective of our immigration issues through a romantic lens. It’s not a new perspective, by any means, but the way she brings it has a poignant beauty all its own.