"Cabrini"... plight of immigrants then and now

[Tanuki]

I was invited to a screening later this month of the recent film "Cabrini". I wasn't familiar with it and looked for reviews. It sounds interesting. Cast includes Giancarlo Giannini and John Lithgow.

https://eastbayexpress.com/film-review-cabrini/

"An inspirational story of a social worker nun that resonates in today’s divided America
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Mother Cabrini (portrayed by Italian actor Cristiana Dell’Anna) immigrates to the U.S. in 1889, accompanied by six other nuns with whom she has founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In her luggage is a personal recommendation by Pope Leo XIII (Giancarlo Giannini) for her mission to aid poor immigrants—specifically Italians—in their painful process of fitting into the United States’ burgeoning multicultural landscape.
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Cabrini arrives in New York’s Lower East Side at a time when Italian immigrants are depicted in the press as a horde of poor, illiterate, non-English-speaking, swarthy brutes, reeking of garlic. The missionary sisters lose no time in moving into the notoriously crime-ridden Five Points neighborhood of Lower Manhattan.

Their goal is to help a group of people commonly portrayed as menial laborers and “threats to American values” set up hospitals, schools and a sense of community in a hostile environment. The similarities between the jingoistic, openly bigoted America on display in Cabrini by filmmaker Monteverde, a native of Mexico, and the political extremes of the present-day U.S. are there for all to see.
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Monteverde’s Cabrini—screenplay by Rod Barr from a story he wrote with the director—does a better job than most mainstream films in capturing the flavor of its early-20th-century settings. It’s in a league with Gangs of New York, Once Upon a Time in America, Days of Heaven and even The Godfather in that respect. And cinematographer Gorka Gómez Andreu’s tribute shots invoking photographer/social activist Jacob Riis add to the poignancy. The cinematography is almost too pretty at times—that’s the worst that can be said about the production values."... (More)