Bordertown directed by Gregory Nava

Nava says his inspiration for "Bordertown" draws from the work of Guatemalan writer Miguel Angel Asturias, the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and the social dramas of Charles Dickens. It is also a return to the tradition of Nava's breakthrough movie, "El Norte," which was nominated in 1984 for an Academy Award for best original screenplay. In that film, most memorable for the scene of illegal immigrants crawling through a rat-infested sewer, he created a fictional story from scores of interviews. In "Bordertown" he took the same approach, trying to weave together the stories told by family members of the murdered young women into his "thriller-drama."

But while "Bordertown" will open in German theaters later this month, and other European theaters soon thereafter, it still does not have a US release date -- despite what Nava describes as widespread interest in the Latino community. It seems a long wait for a film whose mission, says Nava, is to take a "social injustice and compel people to do something about it." Especially so, since in Juarez the deaths continue and the murders remain solved.

Nava describes, in almost crusading terms, an "eight-year journey" to get the film made. "Hollywood is just not interested in movies about social drama and social situations," he says. "They are more interested in making movies about super heroes -- escapist entertainment. And so we had to do this independently and it's going to be distributed independently."

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The Mirror of Lida Sal by Miguel Angel Asturias

"The Mirror of Lida Sal," by Miguel Angel Asturias, is a noteworthy piece of 20th century fiction by a giant of Guatemalan literature. Subtitled "Tales Based on Mayan Myths and Guatemalan Legends," this volume has been translated into English by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert. Miguel Angel Asturias (1899–1974) is one of the notable literary figures in Latin America who in the 1920s contrived both to explore and to define Latin literature within the mainstream of Western history. He managed to be poetic, political and mythological at the same time, and with a degree of synthesis rarely achieved then or since. In this book, Asturias draws upon Central American history and culture to create several fascinating short pieces. His style (as I read it through Alter-Gilbert's translation) is psychedelic and florid; Asturias mixes realistic and fantastic elements throughout the book. The result is comparable to a prose version of the paintings of Spanish artist Salvador Dali.

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Guatemalan Literature