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LA
MEZCLA / The Vila world
DANIEL VILA'S DEBUT DOCUMENTARY HITS CLOSE TO HOME
BY JUDY CANTOR—Published
in The Miami Herald Street Edition January 15, 2004
It's
an afternoon like any other on Southwest Eighth Street and Pepe
Vila, a sinewy man with owlish glasses and a cigarette wedged into
the corner of his mouth, is prepping for his next paint job, meticulously
taping squares of brown Kraft paper over the windows of a rusted
truck. Pepe Vila Body Shop is narrow and not very long; paint cans
fill shelves along one concrete block wall, and a big refrigerator
creaks open to reveal disposable masks and some rags. Another dorm-room-sized
fridge is stocked with food and topped with bottles of Goya condiments,
arranged within spilling distance of where Vila will soon be spraying
the truck with glossy new color. Within the same small area, a cot
has been folded up, neatly covered with a sheet and wheeled into
its place. Jesus watches over from a portrait in an ornate gilt
frame that hangs near the entrance.
The body shop looks pretty much the same as it always did. Today
could be 20 years ago, if not for the date on the girlie calendar,
a talk show pantomiming on the TV, and a conspicuous poster with
computer-age graphics from the Brooklyn Underground Film Festival.
Given a place of pride near the door, it advertises a screening
of Pepe Vila Body Shop, a documentary
by his son, Daniel Vila.
''I grew up coming here to Calle Ocho,'' says the fledgling
filmmaker, whose premiere effort makes its South Florida debut this
weekend as part of the Made in Miami Film & Video Festival. Until
he went off to college in 1996, the 26-year-old, who now calls Brooklyn
home, lived in Wynwood with his mother, sister, and step-siblings,
at a time when the neighborhood was best known for its junkies,
not its art galleries. Throughout most of Vila's life, his father
has not only worked in his Little Havana body shop, but lived there
as well.
After attending Miami's Design and Architecture Senior High, Daniel
Vila won a scholarship to Pratt Institute, the New York art and
design school, for painting, but decided to major in film, instead.
As he walks to a bakery for pastelitos, the younger Vila,
outfitted in a Kangol cap, black T-shirt, and jeans, explains that
he began documenting his family on digital video for his senior
thesis at Pratt.
His fellow students were engaged in more experimental projects (Vila
recalls scenes of ''someone pissing in a junkyard''), and a slice
of life of a Miami family seemed like a questionable subject to
some of his professors, though Vila's Cuban background did pique
their interest. ``People immediately envision a Buena Vista Social
Club type of story,'' smiles Vila. ``They thought it was going
to be about people playing music all the time and smoking big cigars.''
There is, in fact, no music in Pepe Vila
Body Shop save for incidentals, like a CD playing in
a New Year's Eve scene, various street beats coming from car radios,
and, in a scene shot at Vila's grandmother's house, a battery-powered
plush parrot that whistles.
''It's very stripped down,'' Vila says. 'I purposefully didn't include
a soundtrack. I didn't want to be nostalgic, I didn't want to include
old footage of Cuba. I haven't had that Cuban-American mid-life
crisis where you start listening to your grandparents' records.
I grew up seeing the life of these people from the '60s on. This
isn't about Cuba, it's about here.''
Pepe Vila was a crop duster in Cuba; he came from a well-to-do family
and liked the bad-boy trappings: he rode a Harley, and began smoking
before he was ten. After refusing to join the Castro government's
air force, he lost his pilot's license and subsequently arrived
in Miami in the '60s. He took some roofing jobs and worked as a
mechanic before eventually opening his shop. He also met Daniel's
mother: A young divorcee with children, she worked in a Miami Beach
hotel and spoke no English.
Pepe Vila Body Shop is constructed
from conversations with family members and scenes of their everyday
activities over three years. The film centers on Pepe at work, along
with his son Pepito, repeating the slow and exacting process of
painting cars. The documentary recounts the filmmaker's father's
penchant for drink, and his parents' divorce, after which Pepe moved
into his body shop. Vila also reveals his father's nights watching
TV, carefully preparing his meals, bathing with water heated on
a kerosene stove. In Wynwood, his mother cares for her boyfriend,
who had a stroke and is confined to a wheelchair. Breaks in the
family routine come from roasting a pig in the backyard, or praying
with a door-to-door evangelist.
''Doing this piece brought to the forefront a lot of things I had
grown up with,'' says Daniel Vila. ``It was a way to get in touch
with the struggles [my parents] have had to go through.''
The experience seems to have also brought Vila a deeper appreciation,
not only for his family's perseverance but for their lifestyle.
''These are old-school characters who are just set in their ways,''
says Vila. ``[Pepe]'s happy the way he is. He could live somewhere
else but he chooses not to. This is just his bag. I've always thought
the body shop was an interesting place, and one thing that's most
interesting to me is that this guy can actually have a business
in a major American city and not speak a lick of English.''
Pepe Vila Body Shop is a worthy
debut. What is impressive is that Vila was able to face his family
without flinching and create an intimate portrait of the people
closest to him. Pepe Vila Body Shop
thus allows viewers access to a sector of Miami's population --
working-class Cubans -- not usually considered sexy enough for on-camera
exposure. ''Not everyone lives in Coral Gables and wears a guayabera,''
Vila says. 'Most of my friends who've seen the film can relate to
it. They say `That's us up there; that's my family, too.' ''
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