¡Alambrista!, sometimes known as "The Illegal" (the title actually translates out to "high-wire walkers") is a 1977 film directed by Robert M. Young.
It is a tale of Mexican migrant laborers. Roberto is a poor bean farmer somewhere in Mexico. When his wife delivers a baby girl, Roberto starts thinking about how to earn more money to provide for his family. He decides to migrate north into the United States, where the work, as hard as it is, will pay more than he can make in Mexico.
His mother asks him not to go, reminding him of his father, who went north many years ago for the same reason and never returned. Roberto, of course, goes anyway. It's the start of a long adventure that involves backbreaking labor and desperate poverty, but also has some moments of joy, like when Roberto makes a friend of a fellow migrant named Joe, or when he makes an emotional connection with a white woman named Sharon.
Ned Beatty pops up in the third act as a sleazy "coyote" smuggling Mexicans north for agricultural labor. Jerry Hardin appears in one scene as a garrulous man in a diner. Edward James Olmos, in only his second movie, appears briefly as a drunk outside that same diner.
Tropes:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Discussed Trope. When Joe's talking about how Roberto can pick up white chicks, Roberto protests that he's married. Joe blows this off, saying it doesn't matter while Roberto and his wife are separated, saying "Here we're all unattached!" Sure enough, Joe eventually takes a lover, a white woman named Sharon.
- As You Know: As Roberto is preparing to leave, his mother tells him "You're going off just like your father Alberto did!" Roberto knows this and knows his father's name, but this information is necessary for the climax of the film.
- Blade-of-Grass Cut: The first shot is a tight closeup of bean plants in a field, as a shovel digs up a dirt barrier and lets irrigation water into the bean field.
- Call-Back
- Roberto does not speak a lick of English, so Joe instructs him that, when he goes into a restaurant for breakfast, he should order "ham and eggs, coffee." Later, he orders exactly that at the diner where he meets Sharon.
- At the end, after Roberto decides to go home and surrenders himself to a highway patrolman, a truck passes the cop car he's in. The truck is carrying tomatoes, just like the tomatoes Roberto himself was picking early in the film.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Roberto is arrested the film reveals his last name, Ramirez. That seems irrelevant, until the climax, when a man named Alberto Ramirez collapses and dies in a field and the audience realizes that he is Roberto's father.
- Cock-a-Doodle Dawn: The isolated rural nature of the little house Roberto lives in, in Mexico, is emphasized by the crowing of a rooster as he goes about his morning.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Roberto finds a pretty comfortable living arrangement, becoming lovers with a white waitress named Sharon and living in her house. He might well have stayed there for a long time, but one night he and Sharon go to a bar frequented by Mexicans, only for the bar to be raided by la migra. Roberto is arrested and deported to Mexico and he never sees Sharon again.
- Disappeared Dad: Roberto's father Alberto also went north to look for work, and was never heard from again. At the end, Roberto finds his father—as Alberto collapses and dies in the same field where they are both picking vegetables.
- Fish out of Water: Roberto's white girlfriend Sharon takes him to "church". It turns out that church is an outdoor revival meeting in which some preacher breathes fire and brimstone before laying hands on his parishioners. As the pastor screams about eternal damnation while the white people wave their hands and murmur amen, Roberto looks around with a "WTF" look on his face.
- Greasy Spoon: Roberto meets Sharon, a waitress at a grungy greasy spoon diner where truckers and illegal immigrants and drunks and whoever comes off the train stops to eat food.
- Greek Chorus: The soundtrack consists of Tejano songs that basically narrate the action as it's happening. As Border Patrol helicopters track a group of migrants, the singer on the soundtrack sings of "la migra" and their "chickenshit helicopters." Later, the singer sings "Goodbye California, they're taking me away" as Roberto is being sent over the border back to Mexico. The song over the closing credits narrates the whole plot of the movie.
- Human Traffickers: Ned Beatty plays a sleazy "coyote" looking for cheap labor in Mexico. He and his Mexican partner gather up a group of migrants, including Roberto, and smuggle them to Colorado for more agricultural work.
- The Illegal: The story of one Mexican laborer, crossing the border into the United States looking for work, and the experiences he has along the way.
- Killed Offscreen: Roberto and Joe decide to ride the rails to Stockton, looking for work. They crawl into the undercarriage of a freight train. Eventually the train pulls into Stockton and comes to a stop. Roberto looks over, and Joe is gone, having fallen off and presumably been ground into hamburger by the train.
- Secret Other Family: After his father dies, Roberto goes through his effects. He discovers that his father, who abandoned his wife and Roberto many years ago, married a white woman in America and had another son.
- Sexy Figure Gesture: When Joe is talking excitedly how they can pick up white girls, he makes the standard hourglass figure gesture with his hands.
- Title Theme Tune: After all the other songs in the film commented on the action, the song over the end credits starts out "I went up north as an Alambrista," before recounting the rest of the plot, like how "Joe was a good friend to me."
