Which of you knew that the Bratt brothers hail from San Francisco? Because I didn't know that until I sat down to watch La Mission, Peter Bratt's new film about a tough machismo guy from the Mission District named Che who goes apeshit when he finds out that his son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is gay and, with the help of a neighbor (Erika Alexander) who catches his eye, begins to confront the way his macho attitude and violent way of dealing with life are about to cost him his relationship with his child. Che is played by the director's brother, actor Benjamin Bratt, and it's clear from the easy demeanor they have with each other when they sit down to talk about the film that any sibling rivalries have long since dispersed: now it's all about the love.Well, how fun was it for you guys to work together?
BENJAMIN BRATT: Hella fun! [laughter] To use a Bay Area expression. Whenever you say “hella” people go “Oh, you’re from the Bay Area.”
PETER BRATT: Hella cool. Hella fun…
Tell me about your vision for La Mission. How did that come about?
PB: Well, as a writer, usually I start with a theme, so before I even knew it was going to take place in the Mission or have low-rider cars I started out with a theme. The theme was violence and power in communities of color, you know, masculinity… so that was kind of the initial framework, and once I had that I talked to Benjamin about the story. We’re hometown boys from San Francisco; we always wanted to make a film in the Mission district, and the perfect vehicle, we thought, was this brother that we know named Che, whom we consider family. His real name’s Che; he drives a muni bus; he’s tacked out, he has a past; he was a single father; he’s a brown-and-proud Chicano brother, just like the character in the film.
BB: He founded one of the first low-rider clubs back in the day.
PB: And he is what they call a true-to-the-bone OT low-rider. Listens to a certain kind of music, dresses in a certain kind of clothing, and he actually was a consultant on the film and really gave us direction in terms of music, the cars—he lined up the cars for us; he worked with the wardrobe people to help line up the clothing; and the rest kind of just came together.
In terms of the casting of Jess, I know the director always has a final say, but, Benjamin, you were also an executive producer. Can you tell me how that came about? This was Jeremy Ray Valdez’s feature film debut, and I thought he did a great job.
BB: Uh, our producing partner, Alpita Patel, hired Victoria Thomas out of Los Angeles to cast for the lead roles, and we found Jeremy in Los Angeles, as well as Erika Alexander, and I think we both understood at the beginning that those two roles in particular were lynchpins to the success of the story. Probably more so the son, because if you didn’t buy him as someone who was both on the exterior representative of his father on some level, because he internalized the…
PB: The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree!
BB: No pun intended. [laughter] But he also had to have that tenderness. Well, as soon as he walked into the room and started his audition, it became apparent almost immediately that he was the guy.
PB: He was the guy.
BB: It’s a tough role to fulfill because, as my character’s son would have to be, he needed to be requisitely acting and requisitely tough in his comportment. But then he also had to… it’s a very daring thing for a young actor, especially a young actor of color, to embrace a character like that full-on. The actor, Jeremy, was brave and really putting a stake in the ground, saying, “Whatever it requires me to do—you know, mackin’ on this guy, lying in bed with him, I’ll do it, because it’s in an effort to tell an honest story.” Which was really our collective aim.
I was curious about that. You guys didn’t put him through the ringer with all the auditions? You just knew immediately that he was the guy?
PB: Well, we looked at several young men, and we were thinking we were going to discover an up-and-coming actor, and we were actually pretty surprised that he was found by a well-known casting director in LA, and we were impressed enough with him that we went down and Benjamin did a reading with him, and the chemistry was just—as soon as Alpita and I saw it we just looked at each other and it was like, “He’s the guy.”
BB: But on the other hand we’re equally proud of the fact that more than half a dozen of the other actors in the film are plucked right from the neighborhood.
How was the issue of Latin-American heritage approached? How did you feel going back to the community when you were doing this?
PB: Well, Benjamin and I consider ourselves members of the Mission community, so… I’ve worked in the nonprofit world in the Mission with other nonprofits for a long time. Our mother did as well. One of the things we knew we wanted to do from the beginning—just like we based the character on a real guy from the area—we wanted to really have a thread of authenticity throughout, so part of that was… it was twofold. We wanted to have the authenticity, so we wanted to have the real young people who would speak in a way that I think is really hard for an actor to duplicate, and then the other thing is that as filmmakers, as a production company, part of our mission is to empower our people. To tell their stories. So we tried to get as many people, behind the camera and in front of the camera, from the community as possible. And what’s interesting is all the young actors who appeared in the film? They got bit by the bug. One of them, Alex Hernandez, who plays the kind of antagonist character, is now enrolled in San Francisco State and he’s declared himself a drama major. Several of the young cast members are now going to school and studying different plays; they got the bug. They’re like, “Hey, Peter! I’m gonna write my own script, I’m gonna direct it, I’m gonna star in it,” and I’m like, “Wow. A fire has been lit.” Which was one of our—we were hoping something like that would happen. But, to answer your question, it was important to us to get as many people from the community involved as possible.
How come you chose to focus on the gay storyline?
BB: I think if you see the story for what it is, which is ultimately a meditation on violence, the gay element is really the catalyst that sets Che on a very introspective path. He’s a man who negotiates life through violence and always has and on some level is respected for it—and certainly feared for it; we know that. But in the face of that behavior, when he’s faced with the possibility of losing the thing he cherishes most, which is his relationship with his son, he is forced to either lose him completely or open his heart. So what happens is this catalyst puts him on a kind of spiritual path, a spiritual journey, that takes him to a place where he is left with nothing. And his heart opens. That’s really what we wanted to portray by the end of the film: that there’s a person who now has nothing left because of his behaviors. He has a moment of realization that his own violence, his own history, has taken him to this point and it’s his own doing.
San Francisco isn’t generally a popular setting for films and television, and the Mission District is even more specific. Did you feel under a lot of pressure to get it right?
PB: [nods vigorously]
BB: [laughter] We did. Yeah, first of all, there are a thousand and one stories going on at any one time in the Mission District, and we didn’t set out to tell the definitive Mission neighborhood story. We wanted to tell one of the thousand-and-one stories that exist there. But before we did that we approached some of the community leaders we’d known over the years and told them of our intent. Chiefly our intent was to tell authentic stories—to pay homage, really, to the people of the neighborhood that we had loved for decades. And that was critical to even our success in completing the film because without that blessing—it’s not like we asked them for permission, but without that blessing, and without their participation, I don’t believe we would have captured that air of authenticity.
PB: We kinda liken it to—you know Showtime at the Apollo? You get up onstage and if you’re bad they’re not shy about booting you off? Same way in our community: if you don’t come with the real, so to speak, you’ll get booed off the stage, so it was really paramount to us to keep it as authentic as possible.
La Mission is currently playing in select theatres.
1 comment:
Nice interview, bravo!
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