Illustration by Michael DiMilo
Dreamweaver: Film Review of Problemista
★★★★1/2
By Geoff Carter
It’s an oft-told tale. A young man has a big dream. He goes to the big city to make his fortune and encounters seemingly insurmountable obstacles but through perseverance, encouragement, determination, and a little bit of luck, he finally succeeds. Take this formula, add the audaciously brilliant imagination of Julio Torres and (to put it mildly) the larger-than-life personification of shrewish obstinacy and determination in Tilda Swinton, and you end up with Problemista, a brilliant and quirky comedy that also takes on issues of class, immigration, and the impact of art.
The film opens in El Salvador where the child Alejandro (Torres) lives with his mother Dolores (Catalina Saavedra), an artist who indulges her son by constructing the landscapes of his imagination. She does this to keep him close and safe but has a dream where Ale, dressed in blue, leaves the safe haven she has created to confront a monster in a cave.
The film fast forwards to New York City where Alejandro has moved and is trying to get a job in Hasbro’s intern program. After he is rejected and desperate to attain sponsorship for a work visa, he takes a job with a cryogenics firm which freezes terminally ill clients but has not yet figured out a way to bring them back to life, telling prospective clients they’ll figure it out. Alejandro is assigned to mind the freezer of an artist Bobby (RZA) who specialized in portraits of eggs. Bobby’s difficult and bizarre art critic wife Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton) confronts the FreezeCorp manager because she is behind with her bill and is having a difficult time paying for Bobby’s unit. She is shrill, eminently unreasonable, and impossible to shut down.
After he accidentally unplugs Bobby’s unit for a few seconds, Alejandro is fired. Because he will be deported in thirty days if he does not find sponsorship for his work visa—while simultaneously needing a large sum to pay for the paperwork—he jumps at the chance to help Elizabeth create a database of Bobby’s work while trying to arrange a show of his work in order to pay his freezer bills.
Navigating Elizabeth’s incoherent ramblings, her fiery but usually misdirected attacks, FileMaker Pro (which she insists Ale use for the database). and trying to raise the money necessary for his visa application through employment opportunities on Craigslist, Alejandro is swamped.
He follows in Elizabeth’s wake as she plows through waitstaff, customer reps on the phone, and gallery owners, trying to smooth the waters as he works to make Bobby’s show a reality. His patience with her is endless and seems to defuse her fierce capriciousness, but his losing battle to keep his head above water financially is underlined by her ignorance of his plight. She is obsessed with only one thought—keeping Bobby’s dream alive.
Finally, after achieving the impossible and landing a show of Bobby’s work, Ale finds himself left high and dry by the audaciously self-centered Elizabeth but inspired by her attack dog mentality and take no prisoners attitude, Alejandro is finally able to get what he needs.
Considering its somewhat formulaic premise, Problemista is a surprisingly complex film. Torres weaves elements of magical realism, surrealism, and social commentary into the traditional boy makes good story. Starting with the scenes of Alejandro and his mother creating sculptures of his imaginative musings and her dream of her son confronting the monster in the cave, the movie telegraphs that it will be leapfrogging between mimetic reality, the surreal, and realms of magical realism.
Representations of Ale’s financial struggles as he attempts to make enough money for his visa paperwork—while technically being ineligible to hold a job—is brilliantly represented through Alejandro wandering through a sort of M.C. Escher stairway in which every door, window, and trapdoor might take Ale one step forward but then two or three back. Stairs are also a recurring motif in the film, perhaps a symbol of upward mobility.
Eggs also feature prominently in the fabric of the narrative. Bobby explains his obsession with eggs as a symbol of hope and optimism. Alejandro’s application to Hasbro was to the talent incubation program, the path he has chosen to pursue his dreams, to help hatch his aspirations, his own “egg”.
Torres’ use of color is also symbolic of two vying forces in the film. Blue signifies Alejandro and his level-headed approach to life. Red, on the other, is associated with the shrewish, loud, and aggressive Elizabeth. The two are Torres’ yin and yang. Separately, they cannot accomplish their goals, but together they provide each other the balance necessary to succeed.
Dolores’ dream of her son’s fascination with the monster in the cave is amplified into a sort of video game fantasy in which Alejandro—in a suit of armor—is attempting to slay the monster, the many-headed Hydra who is Elizabeth—nicknamed the Hydra by the art community. Ale realizes as soon as you solve one of Elizabeth’s problems (chopping off one of the heads), another one or two grow in its place, and so it is with Liz. She is never satisfied, never happy. Her anger is never sated.
Another recurring theme in the film is the cultural work of art. Interestingly, as Alejandro’s situation begins to resolve itself, the film turns to Dolores and an art project she is having problems with. She ultimately realizes that she has played it safe with her artwork her entire life and needs to take a chance, which she does. Art is also the vehicle by which Elizabeth finally finds peace—at least for a while.
Aside from its surrealistic elements, Problemista unflinchingly conveys Alejandro’s plight as an immigrant attempting to navigate the impossible maze to gain his work visa. Taking cash only payments to avoid violating rules of visa application, Ale can barely make ends meet and ends up subletting his own room while he sleeps on the couch. Elizabeth’s willful ignorance of his plight (she’s too busy worrying about herself) as she tasks him with overnighting data disks—a chore he cannot afford—is all too pertinent in the incomprehension of a life where one has to worry about money. Or being deported.
As Alejandro, Torres exudes a wide-eyed and naïve innocence that is slowly tempered by Elizabeth’s abrasive aggressiveness. His understated comic presence is perfect for the part. When he tells Elizabeth that yes, he does FileMaker Pro (a lie—no one knows how to use it), his timing is absolutely perfect. Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of Elizabeth walks a fine line between excess and overkill. Her Elizabeth is excessive; she has to be, and while Swinton at times nearly topples into self-parody, she always manages to hold the line between audaciousness and believability. She is brilliant.
Julio Torres’ Problemista is the work of a gifted young writer who seems destined to become a great young director. It is a movie that not only delivers on the first viewing, but which resonates long afterwards.