…And The Pursuit of Happiness

Louis Malle’s film …And The Pursuit of Happiness, is justly titled, as Louis Malle, a French Ex-Patriot who after years of traveling the world for filmmaking, becomes an American citizen.  After filming endless amounts of disjointed footage as Malle traveled across America for 3 months, it seems that the film is a connected collection of American vignettes, narrated by an immigrant, instead of a natural born citizen.

A main point at the beginning of the film is by a man known for his hand in starting the American Dream, however, Louis Malle quotes Thomas Jefferson with his worry for the future of immigrants, that immigration will turn the colonies into a  ”hetergenous, incoherent, distracted mass.”  With this quote in mind, the rest of the film displays immigration on both sides of the fence, with one side showing the “melting pot” as an empowering force of combined strengths from numerous cultures, and the other side being a massive display of conformity overpowering individual freedoms.  This is best displayed by a Cuban woman who couldn’t bring her daughter from Cuba, but brings a dog who follows commands in English, and not Spanish.  In an interview, the Cuban woman criticizes her hometown, and praises America for the ability to have “whatever you want.”  However, when Malle films the Cuban district of Miama, which he says “is Cuba,” other immigrants are more thankful for their ability to come from Cuba and be a part of the development of Miami.  

On the other side of the fence, Malle shows a Vietmanese police officer speaking to Vietmanese immigrants.  Malle seems to want to display immigrants bringing their culture from the home’s and installing it into the American psyche.  A student interviewed by Malle shows how immigrant students have a high demand for education, as one student has a choice between Columbia University and Princeton for Medical School.  The same student works in a family owned grocery store when not studying for college entrance exams.

As the vignettes continue, similar stories bounce immigration like a volleyball over a net.  Malle does an excellent job showing numerous opionion’s on the topic, and his narration as an immigrant seems to show a certain criticism for America, that is overwhelmed by the massive opportunities that America held in the early 1980’s.  One of the final scenes shows an Indian family who have a beautiful home in San Jose, California, but converted the barbeque pit into a small Hindu altar.  The family explains how easy life is in America, as owners of a few hotels, and soon a small bank.  However, some cultural differences do not change, as the parents explain the Indian family culture of the younger generations caring for the older generations.  

Personally, as someone who knows a person of Indian descent who is a first – generation American, and whose parents would have made perfect candidates for Malle’s film in the early 1980’s, it is interesting to see how different one generation in American can change the culture in ways that are unexpected.  The final scene shows a man trying to convince Malle that 1/3 of immigrants return home because their dreams are destroyed, which of course is impossible, because returning to a country is almost more difficult than coming to America in the first place.  However, the seemingly brainwashed man talk about the future of relations with Mexico, in which he describes the current situation with Mexico as if he could see into the future.