QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN
How immigrants can survive in the United States in a Donald Trump presidency is a question that has puzzled people everywhere. Eduardo, a chef from Mexico, struggles to come up with an answer. Followed closely by a camera crew, Eduardo and Robert, a man who has a fundamentally opposing view to Eduardo, bring the viewer into a country divided by cultural and political clashes.
This 94-minute documentary sweeps along like a series of disconnected vignettes, capturing viewpoints from all walks of life. Two elderly men admit that they miss Ronald Reagan, a boisterous Republican who was more grounded than Trump. An American football team is primarily made up of black players, countering the notion it is a nation of white Protestants. And then there’s a community of workers who communicate solely in Spanish. The ensemble found in this flick are that of a melting pot.
Much of the work is done almost entirely in silence, allowing the viewer to slip into the world at large. There is a smattering of mariachi music heard in the background where Hispanic immigrants eat to forget “11-hour shift”. People like Eduardo need discipline in order to get through the endless chores thrown at them. On the opposite side of the coin come people like Robert, caucasian conservatives who think immigrants “don’t belong here.” Some of the conversations picked up by the microphone are unintentionally hysterical, not least when two men ruminate on the Obama administration: “Did anyone try to kill him?”.
There are humorous sketches found along the journey. Vassallo records a podcast, in which the host describes the Republican party as the “Right-Wing Fascist Party”. To balance the neutrality, the documentary then cuts to a Trump supporter listening to the man he wants to return to the White House boast about the country’s vast energy supply. With the caveat that the President hopeful doesn’t supply any facts or figures to go with it. At a guess, it would be easy to assume that Vassallo is anti-Trump, but the views could be more apparent.
One sequence, admittedly, hinges on poetry. A caucasian republican waits for his “American-burger”, cooked and prepared by Hispanic workers. The scene is rife with irony, drama, pathos and gallows humour. As bread is cut, and grills are alight, the television set showcases footage of the 2024 election, a vote that will have detrimental outcomes for one side or the other. Words are unspoken, with the people in the restaurant focusing on what is literally ahead of them. It is moments like this that the audience is reminded of the importance of the here-and-now: the frame of mind which cinema itself is based on.
Sadly, these disconnected strands don’t lead to anything grander and more fulfilling. This Italo-American production is a noble – if very simplistic – perspective of the new United States. While it has form, it lacks bite or cohesion. At times, this interesting documentary loses focus and meaning. Nobody will walk out of the screening with a vastly different opinion to the one they had before the movie began.
Gianluca Vassallo is an Italian filmmaker, photographer, artist and political activist.
The Lunch: a Letter to America just premiered in the Doc@PÖFF International Competition of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
