A Barbie doll with her fingers crossed behind her back. A small truck with a flat tire. These are some of the toy ideas of Alejandro (Julio Torres), a young man who aspires to become the world’s most famous toy designer. To achieve his dream, he must overcome a big obstacle: his precarious immigration status. Born in El Salvador, Alejandro needs visa sponsorship to continue living in New York City, but few companies are willing to hire a foreign-born worker. “Problemista” follows his effort to navigate a complicated immigration system while pursuing his lifelong dream.
The film was screened at the Hopkins Center for the Arts on April 4 as part of the Dartmouth Film Society series “Borders and Belonging,” which features films related to immigration and national identity. On April 9, the Hop also hosted a public talk with Torres, who wrote, directed and starred in “Problemista.” Professor Desirée Garcia moderated the conversation, which was programmed in collaboration with Dartmouth Dialogues and the Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies department.
While Alejandro tries to get his dream job as a toy designer, he works at FreezeCorp — a company that freezes the bodies of terminally-ill patients, with the hope that future technology will become available to revive and cure them. His job involves looking after the frozen body of Bobby (RZA), an artist known for his odd-looking paintings of eggs. However, Alejandro’s tenure is cut short when he accidentally pulls the plug that keeps Bobby refrigerated. Although Bobby’s corpse is ultimately preserved, Alejandro is terminated with only 30 days to find a new visa sponsor.
As Alejandro leaves FreezeCorp after getting fired, he meets Bobby’s wife Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton). She is an eccentric art critic who promises to sponsor Alejandro’s visa under one condition: he must successfully organize an art exhibition featuring Bobby’s works, which are reminiscent of surrealist paintings. Alejandro and Elizabeth, as it turns out, couldn’t be more different. Alejandro’s shy and insecure personality contrasts with Elizabeth’s quirky, over-the-top temperament. Their relationship forms a hilarious and unexpected symbiosis – a series of ups and downs that push the movie forward and make it into an engaging comedy.
Surrealism does not only appear in Bobby’s paintings. “Problemista” intertwines Alejandro’s story with fantastical, oneiric visions. The film begins with a representation of Alejandro’s childhood as a fairy tale – he is surrounded by nature and protected by his mother. Yet, Alejandro’s adulthood soon disrupts his perfect world. Elizabeth, whose authoritative leadership style and impossibly high standards resemble that of Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) from “The Devil Wears Prada,” appears in his visions as a three-headed dragon. Alejandro’s bank clerk shows up as an assassin who shoots him in the head. His dream-turned-nightmare evokes imagery and symbolism pertaining to his own life’s challenges – in this case, having an overbearing boss and dealing with a complicated banking system. The film thus conveys the common misadventures of leaving one’s own childhood fantasy to become a young adult with ambitious dreams.
The most remarkable surrealist motif in the movie is the hourglass. In one of the surrealist sequences, every immigrant in the film is assigned to an hourglass. When an hourglass gets empty, its assignee fades away like a ghost. As soon as Alejandro discovers he has 30 days to find a new job, we see his hourglass turned over, conveying the ephemerality of immigrant life and the immense stress faced by those attempting to maintain their legal status.
Alejandro encounters several unsolvable puzzles while navigating his immigration process. For example, he needs money to pay for his work visa, but he cannot get paid without that very same visa. “Problemista” depicts this impasse with a sequence of Alejandro trying to escape a locked room. Each of his attempts leads him to another room — and he never finds a way out. The movie accurately represents the Kafkaesque maze of bureaucracy in the immigration process and the anxiety one feels when stuck in it.
“Problemista” explores consequential social issues without losing its sense of humor or its emotional relatability. Beyond his immigration status, Alejandro has to deal with wacky roommates, endless job applications and various gig jobs. In the end, Alejandro is a 20-something-year-old trying to make sense of a world foreign to his own, with absurd rules that existed long before he was born.
Towards the end of the movie, Elizabeth defines Alejandro as someone who “adores difficulty.” He always chooses the hardest path, especially in his decision to immigrate to a foreign country and chase a profession with a scarce job market. Nonetheless, Alejandro never gives up on his aspirations. The film is ultimately a tribute to problemistas — people who seek problems for themselves in a ceaseless, perseverant pursuit of their dreams.
