To make a film that is both entertaining and informative is a loaded proposition: The tendency to gravitate toward one extreme at the expense of the other often overwhelms filmmakers and results in a film that fails in both respects. The work of first-time writer/director Joshua Marston, Maria Full of Grace (Maria, llena eres de gracia) is a film that manages this balancing act remarkably well.
The film tells the story of Maria, a headstrong Columbian girl who quits her job at a flower factory only to learn, days later, that she is pregnant. Abandoned by her boyfriend and looking for a way to support both herself and her family, Maria agrees to act as a mule moving heroin into the United States for a local cartel. Along with several other young women, including Blanca, Maria’s friend from the factory, and Lucy, an experienced carrier, Maria makes the trip to New York City with the expected complications occurring on their arrival. The women turn to members of the local Columbian community for assistance and to find a way back to their homeland.
The acting is remarkable despite-or possibly due to-the fact that most of the roles went to actors with little or no acting experience. The actors make simple, natural choices in their performances, blurring the line between reality and fiction. The net effect is a degree of authenticity rarely found in many larger, more polished Hollywood productions.
This line is further blurred by the inclusion of Orlando Tobon in the role of Don Fernando, a man who befriends Maria and Blanca on their U.S. arrival. Tobon, a leader in the New York Colombian community, has helped raise money and repatriate the bodies of hundreds of drug mules who have died while smuggling drugs. Initially working as just an advisor to Marston, Tobon was written into the film: Fernando’s advice and assistance to Maria and Blanca mirrors Tobon’s real-life activities.
Maria’s cinematography subtly underscores and enhances the drama and onscreen action without becoming obtrusive. Nowhere is this precision more apparent than during the plane scene, when the mules try to maintain their composure while struggling against their doubts and fears. Tight camerawork and a washed-out color scheme dominate the film’s cinematography. These effects create an unbearable sense of claustrophobia and unease, allowing the audience to participate in the nerve-wracking waiting game to which the carriers are subjected.
Music is used sparingly: Often no more than a few notes or low drones underscore the sense of dread and apprehension onscreen. As the film progresses, scenes that would normally be loaded with background or soundtrack music are conspicuously silent. Instead of canned and cued music used to goad the audience into an emotional response, all we are left with are lingering shots of the characters’ onscreen struggles.
This overall technique makes for an almost documentary-like approach: The audience watches a fictionalized account of drug-smuggling, but it could just as well be the real thing. Exhaustively researched by Marston before filming, Maria has been praised for its attention to detail in scenes shot in both Ecuador (Columbia was too politically unstable) and New York, as well as for its evident understanding of Columbian culture and society.
The current of social commentary running through the film stays enough below the surface that it never dominates. The audience is meant to identify with Maria and her peers, as much victims of the drug wars as those destroyed by drug abuse. Primarily, the film humanizes the people involved in drug smuggling. Marston shows that Marias and Blancas exist in the real world as much as caricatures like Tony Montana.
Alternately sad and uplifting, Maria Full of Grace is a powerful statement in the guise of an excellent film. One in a spate of recent films, such as City of God and Dirty Pretty Things, to frame narratives around the central theme of an overlooked social problem and end as beautiful, tragic and eye-opening films.
