With honesty and respect, Heidi Specogna has made neither a shallow tribute nor a polemic. She's made a great film about America.
The Short Life of Jose Antonio Guiterrez (2006)
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Reviews Counted: 13
Fresh: 12
Rotten:1
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: José Antonio Gutierrez was one of the 300,000 soldiers sent by US Army to war in Iraq. A few hours after the war began, his picture was broadcast all over the world: he was the first American... José Antonio Gutierrez was one of the 300,000 soldiers sent by US Army to war in Iraq. A few hours after the war began, his picture was broadcast all over the world: he was the first American soldier to be killed in the war. He was there as a so-called 'green-card soldier' — one of approximately 32,000, fighting in the ranks of the US Army for a foreign country. The film tells the moving and nearly unbelievable story of a one-time street kid from Guatemala, who headed north along the Pan-American Highway — full of hopes and desires for a better future — ultimately to die an American hero far from home. Searching for the images and stories that made up this life, we set out to retrace José Antonio’s path — from Guatemala through Mexico and into the USA. This story is told by the people who knew José Antonio: his friends from the street, the social workers at the orphanage, his sister, his foster family, his comrades at Camp Pendleton in the United States Marines. But the narrators of the film are also the people we encountered as we were repeating José Antonio’s odyssey from the world of the poor to the world of the rich. People who day after day join the endless stream of emigrants — with no identity, no papers — equipped with nothing but their ability to work and their willingness to turn their backs on home and family forever. José Antonio’s story is no adventurer’s tale. It is the story of an attempt to survive — on both sides of the world. --© Atopia [More]
Director: Heidi Specogna
Director: Heidi Specogna
Reviews for The Short Life of Jose Antonio Guiterrez
While never letting its tone of studious but stewing detachment slip, the movie quietly builds a truly enraging case for a certain form of systematic official cynicism.
The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez is a film with a moral and political message about immigration and the people who are used as cannon fodder by the United States.
The link between the illegal immigrant problems in the United States and the war in Iraq is explored in the moving documentary The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez.
Dispels any remaining myth about the "compassionate" side of that supposed compassionate conservative, George W. Bush.
Although Ms. Specogna's film fleshes out his life to the extent that it can, the portrait remains frustratingly incomplete. But given its larger subject — a young life trampled beneath history's forward march — this seems entirely fitting.
Now, more than ever, it should be seen here in the U.S. for its ironies, both implicit and explicit.
With only a few letters and family photos, director Heidi Specogna never brings her subject to life.
It's impossible not to think of the many other 'green-card soldiers' -- desperate Latin Americans offered breaks on permanent resident status in exchange for military enlistment -- who've paid the highest price for a shot at a better life.
The life and death of the first American soldier killed in Iraq complicates the ongoing debate on illegal immigration.
The Short Life... is one of those docs that takes the life of an individual and surrounds it with other people's stories that are just as absorbing.
Heidi Specogna's The Short Life of Jose Antonio Gutierrez sensitively and methodically tells the story of the first U.S. soldier killed in the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Latest News for The Short Life of Jose Antonio Guiterrez
April 26, 2007:
Critical Consensus: This Film Is "Condemned"; "Next" Vexes; Guess "Invisible," "Kickin' It" Tomatometers!
This week at the movies, we've got clairvoyants ("Next," with Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore), cons ("The Condemned," starring Steve Austin and Vinnie... More...
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