Art Imitating Reality: Cape Verdeans in Gone Baby, Gone

"YOU KNOW YOU ARE CAPE VERDEAN WHEN..... You get excited when you see Cabo Verde on the weather channel." (http://forcv.forumup.org/viewtopic.php?t=50&mforum=forcv)

I experienced that feeling on Friday night while watching Ben Affleck’s first directed movie Gone Baby, Gone at Braintree AMC Movie Theater. First, let me give you a quick 411 about the movie: “Logline- Two Boston private-eyes risk everything to investigate a missing child in a territory of broken families, bitter cops and whacked out ex-cons.” (http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809700023/info)

The movie was shot last summer and fall in the heart of Dorchester's Cape Verdean community: Upham's Corner (East Cottage, Pleasant, and Dudley Street, Columbia Road, and the surrounding area). Thus Cape Verdean and Irish venues from the neighborhood were all over the movie. I couldn't resist being a disturbance to the rest of the audience by identifying, in a loud voice, the bars and business as they come up.

Nevertheless, the Cape Verdean moment that got me crazy happened almost at the beginning of the flick when Casey Affleck’s character, one of the detectives investigating the little girl's disappearance, stated the following regarding the heavy presence of police on that case: ‘Four Cape Verdeans got killed here last year... no one gave a [expletive].’ When I heard the phrase Cape Verdeans, everybody around me found out I was one of them. I jumped off my seat and screamed to my wife, "OH MY GOD! Did he just mention CAPE VERDEANS? What did he say about us? What? What? ..." I completely forgot I was in a theater where I was warned by an introductory message to not “spoil the movie by adding [my] own soundtrack” and kept going on and on loudly about the fact that Casey mentioned CVs. It wasn't me. It was the emotion of the moment. Suddenly, I found my heart beating at a faster rate. My patient wife had to calm me down and literally tell me to "BE QUIET." I know I went over the limit but you have to give me a break here- most of times Cape Verdeans are mentioned in the media around this town it happens in negative perspective. Although this one wasn’t sweet either, it was a reference in a highly anticipated movie premier that was being watched at that exact moment nationwide by millions of people and has the potential to be number one at the Box office this week. So my instant and this time silent reply was, "Go Casey, Go! Put us on the map!"

Then, as the movie went on, I kept seeing Cape Verdean faces all over. I could even recognize people from the neighborhood - kids playing on the streets, old folks hanging outside, young girls looking out from their second floor windows, etc. Truly, a bunch of spots from the neighborhood kept coming up: New York Fried Chicken on Hancock St., the bar right by Las Americas Barbershop, most of the business in Columbia Road, the mural painting depicting Malcom X near the Police Station on Dudley Street and the one by the side wall of the old Dudley Pizza now Antonio's (Cape Verdean) Restaurant at the corner of Dudley and East Cottage St. - my hood.

However, another Cape Verdean moment that touched me was when a sign labeled "something Cabo-verdiana" came up. I believe it's posted near the statue of Saint Nossa Senhora de Fatima at Saint Patrick's Church on Dudley Street.

I can tell that Ben Affleck gave Cape Verdeans a national spotlight in a great movie - well directed, perfect cast, with one of my favorite stars- Morgan Freeman- good plot, great visual effects, and last but not least a perfect Boston accent reproduced by the actors. You could tell that his brother Casey Affleck is a local (from Cambridge). I was trying to pick a flaw on his accent but couldn't find 'nada'. He was perfect in acting and talking like a Bostonian. The only accent that wasn't well reproduced was the Haitian one by Cheese ( Edi Gathegi), a Haitian drug dealer- on a side note, the movie was heavy on painting Haitians as "criminals" especially when detective Remy Broussant, played by Ed Harris, went on a rampage about Cheese, "He's an (expletive) Haitian criminal drug dealer." However, at the end, after all the police corruption was exposed, Casey’s character realized that the corrupt detective Remy “[tried] to pin the blame on a innocent Haitian immigrant because he’s a black man.” Back to the accent, Cheese's imitation of the Haitian Creole was lousy. He sounded mostly like a brother that just arrived from Kenya than a Haitian immigrant.

As for the rest of the cast, they were superb in imitating the tough Irish bar crowd from Dorchester. In any given day, you can walk into some Irish bars around this neighborhood or in South Boston and find exactly that crowd from the movie-- tough guys that don’t think twice before they knock you down.

Returning to the Cape Verdean representation on Gone Baby, Gone, Ben Affleck reminded me that though I have integrated and assimilated much of the American culture and society, I'm still a kriolu (Creole- another term used to identify Cape Verdeans) that "... KNOWS THAT [HE'S] CAPE VERDEAN WHEN..... [he] gets excited for hearing the word Cape Verdeans in a movie."

Editor's Review and Opinion

Do you want an honest word of mouth about the movie? Gone Baby, Gone is an A- act. You get a superb local Drama, Crime/Gangster flick and rich cultural lesson about a fraction of the blue collar Bostonians for only $10. Harvard would likely charge you hundreds of dollars to teach you such lesson but without the local flavor that Ben Affleck was able to capture. Therefore, go see it while it is in the theaters.