The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. His gruff poetry finds its counterpoint in lovely scenes with Nicaraguan poet and ex-guerrilla Sebastien Narvaez, who feels for the nation's broken, forgotten soul.A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart. My favourite is Dean, an irascible, foul-mouthed, beer-swilling American expat who's a hilarious commentator on the intrigue between developers ("land whores and dirt pimps") and locals.
Pinder makes sure his key characters are not merely "representative" but real people whose fates we care about - even if we don't like some of them that much. The issues aren't as simple as "developers bad, locals good," although some gringos do exploit cheap local labour. Land, however, are the engaging folk Pinder finds to illustrate the complexity of land issues in Nicaragua. But this knowledge in no way detracts from this rich film, which uses the looming election (with artful use of archived footage and photographs providing historical and political context) to build tension.
Of course the November, 2006, election results in Nicaragua are known: Former revolutionary leader Daniel Ortega became president for the second time. Land lets us join the citizens of this "underdeveloped" community during the months leading up to a general election that threatens radical change to the status quo. Pinder's captivating, intimate and often funny documentary In January, 2006, three starry-eyed American resort developers, two expat eccentrics and some increasingly restless locals were living in imperfect harmony in a sleepy fishing village on a gorgeous stretch of Nicaragua's Pacific coast dubbed the Central American Riviera.
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