‘Mountains’ Review – Patience May Or May Not Be A Virtue In Monica Sorelle’s Quietly Spellbinding Debut

Xavier Sr. (Atibon Nazaire) is a quiet and dutiful demolition worker who begins Monica Sorelle’s Mountains, a subdued portrait of an ever-gentrifying community in Miami, patiently ignoring the ironies of his profession in hopes that he’ll be able to one day outrun its harsh reality. His job requires him to answer to the beck and call of those who wish to tear down homes in South Florida’s Little Haiti neighborhood in order to take up a stretch of still-valued real estate with a Whole Foods. Many times throughout the film, we see Xavier pulling into the driveway of his humble home as dog-walking suburbanites and privileged passersby plan dinner parties and complain about their abundance of amenities over their cell phones. “We can pick up, like, a rosé or something,” a young woman tells her boyfriend before complaining that he hangs out with his boys all the time. “You can at least give me, like, this one night.” Xavier looks on with disapproval, the privileges that others take for granted being obliviously thrown in his face by one of the many who don’t bother to appreciate all that they have.

For much of Mountains, a title taken from the Haitian proverb “Behind mountains there are mountains,” Xavier represents the personification of showing up. He arrives early to work, is given his assignment for the day, guides his younger co-workers through an array of destruction duties, and returns home to his wife, Esperance (Sheila Anozier), who works part-time as a crossing guard as well as a dressmaker, but is often shown preparing and serving dinner to their small family. The only other member of the household is Xavier Jr. (Chris Renois), a 20-something college dropout who aspires to become a stand-up comedian and spends as little time as possible with his parents, particularly his namesake, who Junior feels looks at him as a failure. (Junior goes so far as to refuse to speak Haitian Creole, which the rest of his family does with regularity.) These three tend to go about their days monotonously, without complaints or grievances – save for Junior, who is sick of his father’s disapproval – because at least they have each other. 

To say that little happens in Mountains isn’t exactly untrue, but it also underscores Sorelle’s deft manner of mining burbling tension from the bellows of a rapidly-decaying locale without ever overdramatizing its inevitable coming to a head. Despite his pensive nature and his willingness to go along with his professional responsibilities, Xavier does feel a great deal of emotion when it comes to the hand life is dealing him in the present, and the fact that his home is suffering at the same time. “They give me an address, I come to demolish it,” he says while standing in front of a half-century-old church that he is about to bring down. But he has his own dreams: To move his family out of their bungalow and into a nicer home, something he has silently longed for ever since they arrived in America.

Esperance is a bit more reticent to the idea of altering their lives in favor of updated appliances and egg-white walls. Her demeanor throughout the film is that of a woman who is pleased with what she has, and might as well wear a sign that says “Do we really need anything else?” Separate entirely is Junior’s juxtaposition, one of the film’s strongest assets, even if our journeys with him occasionally feel like overlong detours from the point. He wants nothing to do with this place and dreams not only of following his own path but of escaping Little Haiti altogether. If he can scrape together enough money from his job as a valet, perhaps he can finally obtain that freedom. 

In many cases, that’s precisely what Mountains is about: The extent to which individuals are willing to go in order to secure independence from the authorities that box them in. Perhaps that’s precisely what makes “Mountains” such a perfect title, given how impossible they are to move, no matter how much effort one may put into attempting to uproot them. Everything else can be uprooted, from families to careers and best-laid plans, but the immovable remains stuck in place. Sorrelle’s film does anything but, as she moves from place to place, each one more colorful than the last, with her cinematographer, Javier Labrador Deulofeu, capturing every location with a vibrance that depicts its present, but maybe not its future.

Yet never does Sorelle cast a dark cloud over her feature debut’s proceedings, especially not in its near-perfect conclusion, one that emotes anger, solemnity, and passion all at once. As Xavier contemplates his next move in life – the man is always in the moment, yet never not looking forward – a parade of dancing, drum-beating, trumpet-blaring locals move not so much past him, but through him, almost as though he is a ghost moving from one life to the next, one of acceptance rather than begrudging recognition. In this single, final shot, Nazaire’s towering performance summarizes Mountains as a whole: Resistance can also be a disguise for both remorse and reverence. Feeling both when the world you know best is disappearing around you is a given, but which of the two sensations you let take command of your soul is what can define the rest of your life.

Mountains is currently playing in theaters courtesy of Music Box Films.