Junkyard Saints/Broken Sky
I must be one of the last folks to see this installment of Fotonovelas. It was worth the wait. Broken Sky was of particular interest since it starred Robert Beltran and was completed shortly after the end of Voyager.
This is the story of the redemption of a young man. Working at a junkyard, and supporting a wife and baby, he is tempted by his friends to run and carouse. Indeed his church going mother-in-law calls him “carouser.” His wife’s disapproval is felt as well, and he cannot bring himself to hold his own child. There is little encouragement in his life to bypass the temptations held before him. The rusting mobile home in its dusty, littered yard evokes the hard life he endures.
The petty glamour offered as an alternative by his companions reveals its dark side when he encounters two men fighting about a car that was brought into the junkyard. One of the men is killed, and when the young man finds the body he runs home rather than call the police. Reflecting over what he saw, and spurning his friends who have come calling, he realizes which car was the subject of the fight and returns to the junkyard to find it himself. Buried behind a false wall in the wheel well is a stash of drugs and money. After taking a portion of the money for himself, he hides the rest in the sanctuary of the car saints that is lovingly tended by the junkyards’ owner.
The money buys needed care for his son, and his wife (not knowing the true source of the money) once again asks her husband to join her at the church services that evening. He agrees although he has been among the missing for some time.
The owner of the car, a drug dealer, returns and redeems it, and after disassembling it discovers the money is gone. He returns to the junkyard and pursues the young man, threatening to kill him. The young man leads him to the sanctuary of the car saints, and offers up a car saint, St. Christopher the Patron of Travelers. Another round of threats by the dealer evokes anguished cries for mercy from the young man, who is now face to face with a reality he never expected to be a part of. A shotgun toting junkyard owner interrupts the dealer and runs him off the property.
The drug dealer takes off down the road only to blow a tire and crash. He is killed and the young man, who was following on his bicycle, retrieves the St. Christopher, leaving behind the money scattered about the front seat. He returns the St. Christopher to the junkyard, and then races off to the church. To the astonishment, and initial dismay, of his wife he insists on holding his son, who is being presented to the church. Outside on the steps he voices his commitment to his wife and child, to be there for them and with them.
The legend of St. Christopher says that he helped travelers across a river. One particularly stormy day he is asked to carry a young boy across. He agrees, even though the boy grows heavier with every step through the water. Although in danger of drowning, St. Christopher soldiers on, mindful of the young life in his care. Finally, when it seems they will both perish, the young boy reveals himself as the Christ Child, the water is calmed and he blesses St. Christopher.
I think there are at least two St. Christophers in the fotonovela (aside from the car saint). One is the junkyard owner, whose simple approach and confidence in himself enables him to face down the drug dealer. In his own way he is a guide and protector for the young man. The second is the young man himself, although he only comes to realize it after his brush with death at the hands of the drug dealer. Taking his child in his arms at the church, he accepts his role as protector and guide, and commits himself to it.
The overall setting for the story certainly illustrates the financial poverty that informs this family’s life, but the church is the setting for richness in relationships. The young man has avoided that richness, focused instead on the poverty in his life. At the end, when he retrieves the saint and leaves behind the ill-gotten gains of the drug dealer, we realize that he has undergone a fundamental change of heart. It is the beginning of a new approach to his life, whose final outcome we will never know.
The story is a simple one, and once we see the car saint the fate of the drug dealer is almost too obvious to those of us who know the St. Christopher myth. It is no surprise that he ‘refuses’ as it were to protect the dealer when the tire blows. This event occurs as we hear the preacher quote Isaiah regarding the wrath of God that will be delivered upon the evildoers. In fact the dealer’s death mirrors the passages being quoted. However, the decision by the young man to step forward and take full responsibility for his family very neatly ties it all together. As St. Christopher ‘comes back’ to the junkyard sanctuary, so the young man ‘comes back’ to the sanctuary of family and church.
Rodrigo is an old man, sick and slowly dying. He is shepherded by his son Mario, who wants to protect his father at all costs. Mario proposes a long-term care facility for his father, who wants nothing to do with any institution. The idea of another hospital stay is even less attractive. The old man values his independence and giving it up is painful.
It is during the conversation about the facility that the candles at the little shrine to Rosita (Rodrigo’s wife/Mario’s mother) flicker out. She died in a plane wreck over 40 years ago, on a plane that Rodrigo should have been on, but wasn’t. Getting up to relight the candles, Rodrigo sees Rosita walking in the field outside the window. Is she real or a hallucination? She appears again when Rodrigo is in bed, hooked up to an IV. She tells him to come to the airport and catch the plane, one that will take them to a beautiful place. Now is his chance to set it right and join her.
In a flashback we learn that Rodrigo and Rosita are separated at the airport because baby Mario is sick and the papers are not in order. They do not have proof they are married. Rosita boards the plane that will carry her to her death, and Rodrigo does not know this until after the plane crashes and he, still at the infirmary, is notified by the authorities.
After seeing Rosita in the bedroom, Rodrigo decides to go to Oakland Airport and catch the plane that is waiting for him. He packs his bag, calls a cab and takes off. When the home aide arrives and gets no answer she calls Mario, who is frantic when he cannot find his father. The cab ride itself is not all that it seems. The cabdriver is a wild man, whose fast driving and demand to see Rodrigo’s money suggests a less than reputable individual. When they stop at a gas station, Rodrigo stumbles into the bathroom, sicker than ever, but still determined to go on. The cabdriver rifles through Rodrigo’s bag, finding yet another stash of money and Mario’s phone number. We realize, once at the airport, that the cabdriver has called Mario. He refuses payment from the relieved son, and offers a blessing for Rodrigo. The wild man proves to be a caring individual despite outward appearances.
Mario leaves his father to check on the status of the ambulance he has called. Rodrigo takes that moment to head off towards the flight line, bag in hand. He sees the plane, and Rosita, across the airport and moves as fast as he can, finally dropping the bag at Rosita’s urging. But it is too much and he collapses on the ground. A moment later the spirit of the youthful Rodrigo rises from the body and runs the final yards to the runway, joining his wife for their final flight together. Mario, running across the field, paramedics behind him, arrives in time to hear the sound of airplane engines and feel the rush of wind as the craft takes off. He has no idea what is happening, other than his father is dead.
When I first heard about the story I fully expected I would like it and I did. I spent a year in California as a hospice volunteer and while I never witnessed death directly, my time was spent with the dying and their grieving families. So this film held a special interest for me, aside from Robert’s performance. This is an honest portrayal of an elderly man’s wish to let his life end as he chooses, while his son struggles with the fact that his father is going to die. Mario has already come to grips with the reality that his father is not as vital and strong as he was, and wants to provide a comfortable life for Rodrigo.
But Mario is not ready for his father to die, as he is looking for a long-term care facility, not a hospice. Long-term care assumes that life, hopefully a life worth living, is being supported. Hospice, at least as it is known in most of America, assumes that death is near. The emphasis is on providing comfort and support through that process, not maintaining life. I don’t know for certain where Mario would fall on the scale that leads from denial to acceptance, but acceptance has not reached him yet. Rodrigo, on the other hand, is ready to die. His encounters with Rosita have convinced him that the time has come to join her.
And what are we to make of those encounters? Are they real or hallucinations? It would appear that in this film we are to see them as real. Watching Rodrigo, I certainly believed he was seeing Rosita and was experiencing something very profound. He holds the match to the point of being burned by it, and still Rosita is there. When he fell to the ground, short of his goal, I was rooting for him to make it anyway. I did not want the paramedics to intervene and force him to live, for however long, through mechanical means. In this instance, Rodrigo ‘lives’ by dying, even if Mario does not see it that way.
I wondered about the cabdriver, was he an angel sent to help Rodrigo reach his goal and provide Mario an opportunity to be with his father one last time? Or was he just a Good Samaritan who recognized that Rodrigo was sick and did the right thing? I will never be sure.
Regarding the ‘stand-in’ for Oakland Airport; I have to say that there is no way this could have been filmed at Oakland. There is no believable way Rodrigo would have wound up on the tarmac. It’s too bad they just couldn’t use a different airport name. Oakland Airport bears absolutely no resemblance to what was portrayed in the film for current time. If there is a jarring note in the film for me, this was it. Folks unfamiliar with Oakland will not notice, or care, but I did.
This was filmed in 2001, a few months after Voyager had ended. Anyone expecting a repackaged Chakotay will be disappointed. Robert is every bit the loving, yet worried son who wants to do what is right for his father. He looks like the typical middle class male, complete with cell phone and SUV. Robert’s Mario accedes to his father’s wishes and even relights the candles on Rosita’s shrine, an act of loving respect. I met many ‘Marios’ in my time as a volunteer, and the love and concern Robert portrayed in the movie echoes what I encountered so often. I am left feeling that Mario wanted very much to hold his father here a bit longer. I am sure Robert’s own life experiences informed the way he portrayed Mario, who I empathized with in view of my own family losses.
A wonderful short film with a very believable Mario.