‘A Song for Cesar’ Film Review: Telling the History of a Labor Movement Through the Music It Inspired
th century. Across a multitude of disciplines, their communal motivator was social-justice advocacy.Sanchez, a veteran musician turned first-time filmmaker, sets the tone with footage from Fantasy Studios where the title track, an ode to Chavez, was recorded before talking-head interviews and archival footage begin unspooling a thread that extends from his contemporaries to current performers like the band Ozomatli or songstress Lila Downs.In this roll call of Chicano storytellers, the tunes serve as sonic picket signs and tributes to the power of organizing: Joan Baez’s “No nos moverán,” El Chicano’s “Don’t Put Me Down (If I’m Brown),” Little Joe’s “Viva la Huelga,” or Joel Rafael’s “El Bracero,” about exploited Mexican migrant farm workers who arrived in the United States in the 1940s and 50s.As part of their overview of the movement for better labor conditions, Alegria and Sanchez portray Chavez as someone attuned to the influence of popular art, passionate about jazz, and an avid dancer. Photographs of the future hero as a young pachuco in a zoot suit give way to anecdotes about how later in life he found joy in collecting records.The point, it seems, isn’t merely to humanize Chavez further but to note his conscious awareness of art as a resource in his non-violent arsenal to enact change in culture and, eventually, in policy.