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Derek Malcolm's rating
American dream on a peasant's budget
By
Derek Malcolm
28 Jun 2007
Emanuele Crialese's second film, after the muchpraised Respiro, is set at the turn of the century, when thousands of immigrants left Europe for America.
Our focus is a family of simple peasants from the Sicilian countryside who embark on the dangerous journey across the sea to a hoped-for Garden of Eden where fruits grow huge and money falls from the tree.
Clearly made with a small budget, Golden Door uses fantasy to express their hopes but realism to show their poverty at home, the awful journey, and finally the tests they are put through by the American authorities to determine whether they are fit enough physically and mentally to become American citizens.
Much the best part of the film is its final third in which Salvatore (Vincenzo Amato), having romanced an English girl he meets on the boat (Charlotte Gainsbourg), has to promise to marry her in order to stay in America. The film is touching, imaginative and makes the best of its cash through a minimalist skill that shows Crialese to be a genuinely original director.
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