Customer Ratings & Reviews

As the granddaughter of Polish immigrants (my grandmother immigrated to the US from Zamosc, Poland in 1917 when she was four years old), I grew up hearing stories about Ellis Island from my grandmother (who had quite a large collection of books on Ellis Island), and also read a number of novels and watched documentaries (Ellis Island) on the immigrant experience. However, reading first-hand accounts of the events and seeing them brought to life on the big screen made quite a difference. Golden Door (released as New World in Italy) follows the Sicilian Mancuso family, headed by persnickety grandmother Fortunata, her son Salvatore, and his sons Angelo and Pietro. Salvatore is barely able to scratch a living from the rocky, unforgiving landscape (shown to perfection in haunting aerial shots), and after many false starts, begins to make arrangements to go to America. Fortunata has no desire to join them, and Pietro, a deaf-mute, identifies more closely with her. The first third of the film involves Salvatore's selling of his goods to finance the voyage, and the preparations that have to be made. Along the way, Salvatore meets the beautiful, mysterious Englishwoman Lucy, who is traveling in Sicily by herself and attempts to travel with the Mancusos. The middle of the film chronicles the ocean steamship crossing, with its cramped, segregated male/female quarters, and a rough storm at sea. To be honest, the scenes of the living arrangements seemed too quiet from what I've read; when Lucy gets up at night, there's nary a peep (no young children on this ship, apparently). Also slightly disappointing was the fact that when they finally arrived in New York, there was no (standard) shot of the immigrants glimpsing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. The final third deals with the Mancuso's fairly typical experience at Ellis Island, and this is where the film shines. Director Emanuele Crialese really did his homework on the battery of physical and psychological tests performed on prospective immigrants in order to determine their "fitness" for life in the United States, and it's slightly shocking by modern standards to see the humiliation that some were subjected to. The American Ellis Island staff in the film come off as cold and unconcerned, particularly with the heartbreaking situation of some of the "mail-order brides" forced into marriage after a dangerous ocean crossing. However, Crialese did include (brief) glimpses at other immigrants, including Eastern European Jewish, Middle Eastern, and other European countries. Small touches of wonder at their new situation are alternately funny and touching, such as immigrants scaling the frosted glass windows to look across the harbor, where they contemplate living in a skyscraper, or Salvatore's result of a block puzzle. Crialese chose to shoot the film in Buenos Aires and personally chose all 700 extras, most of whom are descendants of Italian immigrants to Argentina. The scenery is effective, and the film was digitally colored to leach out bright hues, resulting in an appropriately washed-out, aged look (although not as garish as Tim Burton's use of digital coloring in Sweeny Todd). The Golden Door soundtrack includes folk songs, a hint of tango, and symphonic interludes, and works well with the visuals. An in-depth making-of features interviews in French and Italian (funny to hear the Italian lead Vincenzo Amato interviewing in French rather than his native Italian, but his French is quite good). My only dislike of the film was the inserted "dream sequences" that featured hallucinations of giant vegetables and rivers of milk (the end sequence was downright creepy in an Andy Warhol kind of way). As Salvatore didn't strike me as lighthearted, these "hallucinations" come across as forced rather than a natural extension of his personality and took away from some of the gravity of the immigrant experience presented here. Overall, this is a lushly realized look at the immigrant experience, including the many sacrifices and dangers along the way that are sometimes overlooked due to the romanticized view of the immigrant experience. Crialese has created a timeless tribute to the sacrifice of our grandparents who gave up everything (not just family living in the Old World, but often their language, culture, and customs) at the chance for a better life in America.