Benjamin and Peter Bratt: La MISSION
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The companion to hope, "change" is perhaps the most over-used and under-executed words in the common vernacular today. With their movie, La MISSION, actor Benjamin Bratt (who is best known for playing Detective Rey Curtis in the NBC drama Law & Order) and his writer/director brother Peter (who previously collaborated with his famous sibling on the 1996 film Follow Me Home) explore the motivations that might transform change from an abstract concept into tangible social movement in the forward direction on an individual level.
Human beings, by their very nature, resist change. This innate intransigence is often only overcome when the consequences of maintaining the status quo are significantly more painful than personal growth and transformation. In La MISSION, the central character finds himself at such a crossroads.
Che is a tough walking and talking Latino man who has secured the position he enjoys within his local community thanks to his testosterone-charged social skills, which are prized among his peers. However, Che is himself a victim of cultural stereotypes which dictate what a man should be, and unless he can reconcile his outdated ideas of masculinity and overcome the homophobia that to this day is a very real part of his culture, he risks losing the one thing that is most important to him - his son, Jes, whom he finds out is homosexual in the film's opening act.
The story was inspired by two characters in the Bratt brothers' life: Che is based on an older schoolmate and natural born leader whom Benjamin and Peter looked up to as kids (though the real-life Che has two sons, neither of which are gay), while Jes' journey echoes that of a family member who experienced a similar struggle for acceptance when his father discovered he was gay. But the family roots in La MISSION go even deeper. The film is set in the San Francisco neighborhood in which the brothers were raised, and its underlying message of hope and transformation is a testament to the convictions of Peter and Benjamin's activist mother, Elda Bratt, who participated in the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 (with her two young children in tow).
Though the subject matter of La MISSION may seem a little earnest for some, the underlying issues are handled in a sophisticated and subtle manner, which belies the power of the film. Politics take a backseat, as the viewer is immersed in the colorful lowriding culture Che reveres, and the very personal issues which father and son are fighting to overcome. Heartfelt and touching, La MISSION is all that independent filmmaking should be.
SuicideGirls spoke with Peter and Benjamin to find out more about La MISSION, and their wider calling to inspire and enact change through the ancient art of storytelling and their shared passion for film.
Question: What inspired you to specifically write about homophobia within the context of the Latino community?
Peter Bratt: Homophobia is only one of the things explored in La MISSION. What I was interested in was our ideas of masculinity and power. Benjamin's character Che is a patriarch who has really learned to negotiate life using the "might makes right" credo. He uses violence and intimidation to control his world, and in turn, holds a place of respect in the streets and in the community. I think you'll find the same thing in the dominant culture. It doesn't matter if it's a Fortune 500 executive, a star athlete, or a movie icon like Brando's Godfather -- we're conditioned to admire "powerful men" who acquire their power through domination and control. Regardless of race, these types of male figures are what most men are encouraged to emulate.
With La MISSION, my intent was to try to equalize that balance of the masculine and feminine. In that way, the film also explores issues of domestic violence perpetrated against women; it looks at homophobia, and to some degree class and race. Why? Because within a culture of domination, all those things are connected. The character Che, through the power of the love he has for his son, is ultimately forced to confront those old male identities, which he has cultivated over a lifetime. And in turn, he has to find something else within himself that is more feminine than it is masculine -- something that is perhaps more difficult to do in the Latino world than it is in the mainstream.
Directly related to all of this, of course, is how we regard the "feminine." As a culture, we look down upon feminine traits like emotion, nurturing, love, etc. In fact when we talk about those very subjects, we often apologize for doing so. I've done this several times when discussing the film. We say, "This might sound corny, but..." We apologize for those things because they are seen as "feminine" and therefore inferior and not worthy of our respect.
In the film, Che sees his gay son as "weak" and therefore feminine. And that's what's really at the heart of Che's shame -- that his son is no longer a "man," and is now a "bitch" or "pussy." The sad truth is that this speaks just as much to our culture's misogyny as it does its homophobia.
With La MISSION, my intent was to try to equalize that balance of the masculine and feminine. In that way, the film also explores issues of domestic violence perpetrated against women; it looks at homophobia, and to some degree class and race. Why? Because within a culture of domination, all those things are connected. The character Che, through the power of the love he has for his son, is ultimately forced to confront those old male identities, which he has cultivated over a lifetime. And in turn, he has to find something else within himself that is more feminine than it is masculine -- something that is perhaps more difficult to do in the Latino world than it is in the mainstream.
Directly related to all of this, of course, is how we regard the "feminine." As a culture, we look down upon feminine traits like emotion, nurturing, love, etc. In fact when we talk about those very subjects, we often apologize for doing so. I've done this several times when discussing the film. We say, "This might sound corny, but..." We apologize for those things because they are seen as "feminine" and therefore inferior and not worthy of our respect.
In the film, Che sees his gay son as "weak" and therefore feminine. And that's what's really at the heart of Che's shame -- that his son is no longer a "man," and is now a "bitch" or "pussy." The sad truth is that this speaks just as much to our culture's misogyny as it does its homophobia.
Q:
Benjamin and Peter, much of your shared background went into this movie. Can you talk about your family, your mother in particular, and growing up in The Mission?
PB:
Benjamin and I were born and raised in San Francisco by a single mother. We were children during the '60s and the '70s, which was a really active time for social movements. You had the Black Power movement, the Brown Berets, you had a lot of people of color asserting who they were culturally and politically. Our mother was part of that social movement that was happening all around the country and really vibrantly in San Francisco. We were raised with this kind of social activist consciousness that was very much a part of the time, and certainly a huge part of what was taking place in The Mission district, which was largely Latino and also Native American at the time.
Along with the social activism of the time there was this incredible artistic movement. The two kind of melded together. You had artists who were singing, writing poetry and painting pictures that were very political in nature and yet incorporated all these cultural artistic sensibilities. We were kind of incubated in that and I think that comes through in the film. Even today when you walk through The Mission, it's largely an immigrant Latino community. If you walk through you see murals on almost every building, and a lot of times the murals depict the struggle of immigrants, of indigenous people throughout the different stages of California history. You have all this geography and peoples interacting and growing, some leaving, some changing, and I think that comes through in the story a little bit.
Along with the social activism of the time there was this incredible artistic movement. The two kind of melded together. You had artists who were singing, writing poetry and painting pictures that were very political in nature and yet incorporated all these cultural artistic sensibilities. We were kind of incubated in that and I think that comes through in the film. Even today when you walk through The Mission, it's largely an immigrant Latino community. If you walk through you see murals on almost every building, and a lot of times the murals depict the struggle of immigrants, of indigenous people throughout the different stages of California history. You have all this geography and peoples interacting and growing, some leaving, some changing, and I think that comes through in the story a little bit.
Q:
Definitely. The subject matter of the story is very political, but you've managed to make it an incredibly personal story, and it's incredibly moving as such.
PB:
Oh thanks.
Benjamin Bratt: One thing I want to make clear is that there was an agenda of afoot when the story was written. The story, although it's very culturally and geographically specific in its examination, Peter as a writer wanted to take a broader look at archetypes that are very familiar to all of us.
PB:
I think at the core of the story what I wanted to explore as a writer was the idea of change and transformation. As we know, Obama was elected on a platform of change we can believe in, and that speaks to a lot of people. At the time where we're at in human history I think everybody knows that we need to change something in the direction we're going. For me what was interesting is, what does that mean at the very individual level? What does it mean for a character like Che who finds respect and has earned his stripes through domination and often times violence? What does it mean to change that behavior or those attitudes that he's developed over a lifetime?
What I found is that that process often times is really incredibly painful and there's a certain amount of suffering involved. We have to give up something of ourselves in order to make that change. I think just as that happens on an individual level, to change like Obama is suggesting is going to take a collective burning or suffering. That's really the core of the idea that was explored in the film, watching this man motivated through love go through the fire so to speak, and lose a part of himself in order to gain something new.
What I found is that that process often times is really incredibly painful and there's a certain amount of suffering involved. We have to give up something of ourselves in order to make that change. I think just as that happens on an individual level, to change like Obama is suggesting is going to take a collective burning or suffering. That's really the core of the idea that was explored in the film, watching this man motivated through love go through the fire so to speak, and lose a part of himself in order to gain something new.
BB:
It's ultimately a spiritual journey that he's set upon by the catalyst of information that he's drawn from the son revealing his sexual orientation.
Q:
Given the minority subject matter, was it easy to get the project funded?
BB:
The number one thing that dictates what gets made in this town is money, and by and large studios, and even fairly larger independent companies, they won't take on a subject matter for a film if they can't see a marketplace for it. Surprisingly, we found when we first took the story out to what are considered more traditional forms of funding, they didn't get where they could market it, and if they can't understand where and how to market it, they're not interested because they can't make money from it.
PB:
I really think it comes down to a question of perception. When Benjamin and I first took the film around, the reaction was, "Why do you want to tell a gay story? We've already dealt with this kind of content. It's kind of passé." I think the underlying assumption there is that mainstream culture has maybe dealt with it on a certain level, but it's still a relatively taboo subject within the Latino community.
BB:
And in most minority groups.
PB:
So actually right after going to Sundance and talking to distributors and marketing people, you find that what comes under the banner of Latino can't necessarily include an aspect or a texture that has homosexuality in it. Latino is very narrowly defined and just by having an aspect of the story that has homosexuality discussions and conversations going on takes it out of that genre. What that tells me is how Latino culture is perceived is also very narrow.
Q:
How's The Mission changed over the years?
PB:
When we were growing up [it] was probably Mexican American, today it's still Mexican American but it's equally Central American, there's a Brazilian population, there's African American, there's now a Southeast Asian presence in the neighborhood, and there's also young hipsters who come, and a growing white middle class because of gentrification. To me what makes it uniquely American is that [the cultures] all come together, they borrow from one another, and then sometimes there's a collision. Some people claim the neighborhood is "ours" and "you're taking it away," but if you go way back, the first human communities that lived there were Native American. So it's constantly evolving and changing and I think that's still happening today. But what I think makes The Mission so alive is this kind of social activist nature that it has, and one of the reasons why it does that is because there's still struggle.
Q:
I'm told you had to negotiate a gang truce in order to shoot in The Mission. Can you talk about that process?
PB:
It's actually not as glamorous as that. We worked with a Mission community member to do outreach to the different non-profits in the neighborhood. One of these was an organization that works directly with the gangs in the area of violence prevention. We were going to be filming in their "territory," so through our outreach person, we respectfully let them know that. And like anywhere, respect goes a long way.
Q:
I understand that that community outreach also extended to the local kids.
PB:
Well, when Benjamin and I were young, oftentimes the first exposure that we had to art was at a lot of the community centers in The Mission district. There used to be the American Indian center in the heart of The Mission where we went and did classes; There was archery, there was potlucks, powwows. There's The Mission Cultural Center which today still offers photography, silk-screening, dance, música, Capoeira -- which is an Afro-Brazilian martial art which I did for 20-years in The Mission. That still is going on. There's this incredible artistic movement within The Mission.
So we actually went to centers that still exist like that in the community to cast a lot of the young cast members who were acting in front of a camera for the first time. You can see what happens to a young person in this community, which often times is filled with struggle, the working class families and some below the poverty line. When you see a young person go, "Oh wow! These camera and lights, these are here for me," there's a light that goes on, an empowerment, and it's really electrifying to witness.
So we actually went to centers that still exist like that in the community to cast a lot of the young cast members who were acting in front of a camera for the first time. You can see what happens to a young person in this community, which often times is filled with struggle, the working class families and some below the poverty line. When you see a young person go, "Oh wow! These camera and lights, these are here for me," there's a light that goes on, an empowerment, and it's really electrifying to witness.
BB:
I think the golden rule for all artists in general, but particularly for writers, is write what you know. So it probably makes less sense for us as filmmakers to tackle say the horror genre, or something like that, as opposed to something like a neighborhood that's near and dear to our hearts. So in answer to part of your question, it's not surprising to me that my brother is the architect of this story. It really does have universal themes, both on the heavy emotional side and in terms of what exists in real life, the levy that hangs in the balance often times in the face of struggle. [It's not surprising] that he sets it within a neighborhood that is not only familiar, but deeply meaningful, not just to us but the extended family that we still enjoy in the city, and it necessarily has a political / social justice bent to it, which is something that was instilled in us by our mother. Essentially it's storytelling from the point of view of something near and dear to our hearts.
Q:
Black music dominates the film's soundtrack. Is there any reason you used that rather than traditional Mexican music?
PB:
Actually I really believe that African music is the soundtrack of American music. It's at the heart of American music, not just in North America. A lot of the Latin sounds have their West African roots, the clave rhythms of Cuba, salsa, merengue, cumbias, R&B, jazz, soul, it all has freakin' heart.
This country, and a lot of the nation states in the Western hemisphere, was founded on the oppression of indigenous people, and then Africans who were brought here as slaves, so for me that African core influences all cultures -- and the lowrider culture in particular, especially [Benjamin's] character who's an OG lowrider. The lowrider culture went hand in hand with R&B oldies. When people see lowriders and cholos and vatos, and they hear that soul music, the two just seem to go together naturally...Again, it's more like cultural borrowing, and even today you see a lot of African American rappers, they actually have taken the lowrider, which is akin to the Mexican American experience, and made it their own. Again, that's also something that is uniquely American, cultures borrowing and sometimes colliding against each other.
This country, and a lot of the nation states in the Western hemisphere, was founded on the oppression of indigenous people, and then Africans who were brought here as slaves, so for me that African core influences all cultures -- and the lowrider culture in particular, especially [Benjamin's] character who's an OG lowrider. The lowrider culture went hand in hand with R&B oldies. When people see lowriders and cholos and vatos, and they hear that soul music, the two just seem to go together naturally...Again, it's more like cultural borrowing, and even today you see a lot of African American rappers, they actually have taken the lowrider, which is akin to the Mexican American experience, and made it their own. Again, that's also something that is uniquely American, cultures borrowing and sometimes colliding against each other.
BB:
There's something very attractive about the purity if you will of a character like Che. He's almost ritualistic in every detail of his life and how he styles his life, down to the way he irons his pants, the kinds of hats he wears, the types of shoes, the cars he drives, the music that he listens to. It's a very specific choice, and from an actor's point of view, to play someone that detail orientated was really fascinating. And for us, we had the very real human touchstone of the real life Che, who was a consultant on the film. A lot of the gems that come out of his mouth [in the movie] really were generated by him.
Q:
The other stars of the movie are the beautiful lowrider cars. How did you set about casting them?
PB:
Ben's character, Che, is based on a person we went to school with. He came up in the Mission District and, when we were in middle school, he formed one of the first lowrider clubs in the neighborhood. He's what is considered a "to the bone OG lowrider," meaning he lives by a code, an aesthetic that is unique to the older members of the lowrider community. He was our technical consultant on the set -- which means he helped Benjamin pick out his clothes, helped me select the music, and most importantly, helped us all to find those beautiful cars.
Q:
Benjamin, what kind of future do you envision for your brother as a director?
BB:
I've always held my brother in the highest regard, not least because of his heart, but I love the way he thinks. I love how he marries the power of this particular medium, this particular art form, with a mind for social justice. He understands that we are our stories. It doesn't matter what culture you're from, what country you're from, what part of the world, we all live by the stories we tell about ourselves. And in those stories are the markers and the indicators for how we interpret ourselves, and it's actually an indication for what our future is too.
I see him as a visionary filmmaker because he starts with the germination of a simple idea and he carries it all the way through, filling out all the various shades of grey with vibrant colors of humanity. To take a focus of a character like Che and set it within a neighborhood that will necessarily have all these external pressures forming the friction between father and son is brave because some of the subject matter, particularly the homosexuality issue, is still very much a taboo subject within the Latino culture. But he's a provocateur as well, and all good art should provoke discussion. I think this will certainly do that.
La MISSION open on limited release on April 9. For more information on La MISSION and details on upcoming screenings go to LaMISSIONTheMovie.com/.
I see him as a visionary filmmaker because he starts with the germination of a simple idea and he carries it all the way through, filling out all the various shades of grey with vibrant colors of humanity. To take a focus of a character like Che and set it within a neighborhood that will necessarily have all these external pressures forming the friction between father and son is brave because some of the subject matter, particularly the homosexuality issue, is still very much a taboo subject within the Latino culture. But he's a provocateur as well, and all good art should provoke discussion. I think this will certainly do that.
La MISSION open on limited release on April 9. For more information on La MISSION and details on upcoming screenings go to LaMISSIONTheMovie.com/.
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