That was intense. My stomach still hurts. So I just saw A city of dreams. Let’s talk about it. Directed by Mohit Rumchandani. Stars Ari Lopez, Diego Calva and a whole bunch of other people. I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching a movie and it gets really intense, it’s not just a feeling. It becomes very physical for me. Um, I remember the movie Argo, where we get to a part where it gets very intense, where they’re getting ready to fly out of Iran. Um, I held my breath, and the rest of the theater did as well, because as soon as they got out of Iranian airspace, you could hear the. Oh! In the movie theater. This movie, um, was just physically intense. Fast pace. There’s a scene in particular where my stomach just hurt. I was very much involved in what was happening. I was just on the edge of my seat. Had to put my nachos down. I didn’t even finish my nachos. That has never happened. So Jesus is from a small, like, little town in Mexico, and he is on his way to Los Angeles to attend what he thinks is a soccer camp. But when he gets there, it’s not a soccer camp. It is a sweatshop in the middle of Los Angeles. What appears to be a wealthy, well to do home. Um, and it. It’s just downhill from there. Ari Lopez plays our lead. This is his feature film debut. What an incredibly talented young man. So it’s never clear if he is mute because of something physical. Or if he just chooses not to speak. But he doesn’t say a word until the very end of the movie. So everything we’re getting in terms of what’s happening. Because he is. We’re following him. He is, you know, driving the plot, driving the story. Anything that happens is happening to him. It’s happening around him. It’s what he’s experiencing. So all he has is his face and his body language to communicate what he sees, what he feels, what he thinks. And, my goodness, the talent. Diego Calva is also in this, in kind of a minorish role. This is the first time I’ve seen him since Babylon, which he should have been nominated for an Oscar for that. Was he? I don’t remember. But he didn’t get the recognition he deserved for that movie. No, he did not get nominated for an Oscar. Him and Margo Robbie should have been nominated for that movie. But I digress. We’re going on a Tangent here. The only issue that I have with this film is I felt the production design for some of the, um, rooms within the house were just a little melodramatic. It felt put on, heavily put on. But other than that, I mean, it’s well acted, well written, well produced, um, beautifully shot. Golly, the camera work. There’s one particular scene, and this is where it got Really intense. It is an incredibly long scene. Somewhere between, like, 15 and 20 minutes. This scene is very, very long. And just the. The steady cam work, the handheld camera work, um, just a good chunk of it is one long take. Um, I. I wanna see a behind the scenes of just the rehearsal and the blocking just to make that scene so it was perfect. So this film is doing two things. Number one, it is, you know, raising awareness for human trafficking and modern slavery within the United States. And number two, it’s shining a light on the abuses within the manufacturing of fast fashion. What I just said should not come as a shock to you. It is not a conspiracy theory. We all know it. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows how the clothes from Shein get made. Everyone knows, you know, certain things like Fashion Nova, it’s not on the up and up. If it’s fast fashion, more than likely it’s involving some sort of illegal labor, child labor or slavery. And that scene I was talking about with the. The wonderful camera work where it gets intense and. Sorry to spoil it, but, my god, this scene alone is worth a ticket. Incredible. Like, if you could give awards for just, like, in the best scene, like this would deserve recognition. Um, because a lot of things are happening here. So Jesus has found a way to escape. He’s running for his life. That Is the scene he is literally running for his life. He’s in an unfamiliar setting, he’s, you know, running all throughout LA. And he finds himself, you know, in a but basket, in a. In a truck going to another warehouse. So he lives in the house where the stuff is manufactured. He is now going to another warehouse where they’re also doing a lot of sewing, they’re also doing shipping and packaging and what not. And, um, that’s where he finds himself. And he gets caught. But then now he’s running for his life. So he runs out of the warehouse and finds himself in back alleys where they’re selling a lot of, you know, fast fashion stuff. So mass produced, um, uh, fanny packs, mass produced clothes and scarves and what not. And then he finds himself in a store with all these mass produced dresses and shirts. And it’s, it’s such a powerful thing because before we even get to this long scene, we see a dress, and it’s one of the dresses that he makes. And then he gets back into the warehouse and he sees that same dress being packaged. And it’s such an oddly placed little thing because nothing comes of it cause he just picks it up, pulls it over like he recognizes it, realizes this is something that his hands have made, puts it back down. And then as he’s running for his life, he sees a woman wearing that dress. It’s A subtle yet loud indictment of the fast fashion industry. A middle finger, if you will. Um, a calling out like, I see you and I. And it’s. It’s that he baked. The director and. And the camera people basically take us on the journey from the creation of these clothes to when they end up on our bodies and what that process looks like and basically just throws it out there in the open. It’s subtle and it’s bold and it’s well done. That was intense. I was on the edge of my seat. But the only way this movie works is if the lead actor is quality. And he carried. My god, he carried. What an incredibly gifted young man. That scene alone, though. I’m gonna be thinking about that for days. I almost wanna watch this again just to dissect it. And just. It was just. Oh, oh, what a risk, though, because, you know, we’re in the age of, you know, short attention spans, and everything needs to be done quickly or else we lose focus or else we lose interest. And they really took a risk by making this scene so long. But it has certain little elements and pockets in it. You know, a social commentary, if you will, that you can’t help but pay attention. It was just. Is well crafted, well done. But it was such a risk. That’s cinema. Cinema is. That’s what it’s been since its inception was Taking risk and hoping for the best. Crossing your fingers that it works. And it worked. I thought that was. This was well done. It was just. It was straightforward and very well done. And I will tell you, though, um, the way they hate it on sound of freedom, they’re gonna hate this one, too. There is something about this subject matter in particular that just makes Hollywood and critics so angry. But if there is a movie this year that I would be like, you have to see it. I feel like this is it. This. This is it. This is the movie to see. Five major releases this weekend, and I saw four of them, and this was definitely the best of the four.