Just perfect...

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This should be mandatory viewing for every loud mouth American who pontificates about immigrants while shoving cheap food in their mouth supplied by workers from around the world. Don't let that statement keep you away..this is no bleeding hearts polemic. These are stories full of heart, sentiment (but not sentimentality), and love. The acting was beautiful: the child playing Mexican Pricilliano (sp?) gave an amazing performance, but an equal argument could be given in the Cuban and Morrocan stories too. The repeated use of actors was excellent. I wasn't totally sure of what I clearly was seeing. The film had humor, pathos, a touch of mysticism, tragedy.........wonderful music, beautiful photography. I guess I opened the review with my statement because I felt so completely immersed in three different cultures, and none of them were worlds that I felt like I really knew before. I just saw it at the Palm Springs Film Festival as one of the potential Academy Award nominees, and I wish it was available for more showings. I loved this film.

This movie has a very interesting structure, good acting, beautiful scenes, even the script brights for moments... but unfortunately no one of the stories involves enough as is expected. Instead we've got a lot of common 'dramatic 'till it hurts' situations as in the major part of this films.Enhacing the fact of the very child performing, the plot is just an easy dramatic exploitation in itself with no sense of touch with the real 'cause and effect' of the parental leaving home.Anyway this film could worth for watching the beautiful photography. Some of the scenes in the 3 stories are simply unforgettable.

Al otro lado (At the other side) is a modest movie, not very long (just 90 minutes), but condensates the whole feeling from what a real movie should be. It's the story of the children and their relation with the problem of emigration and its consequences. This might be a sure formula to get cheap sentimentalism but this film avoids it successfully. Yes, children are always a good way to get not only empathy but the complete favor from the audience. But the story doesn't have the intention to makes you cry: It tells the simple story just as it is in life: Difficult but funny, without giving up the dreams nor the hope. The emigration seen through the eyes of a child is a good theme but it was a pity that the film just focuses in the emigration to the USA and Spain, and this is a worldwide problem that maybe deserved a mayor experiment as seen on 11'09''01 - September 11. What happens in Asia, in Africa, in Oceania? A good example can be seen in the Academy Award Winner Reise der Heffnung(1990)- Journey of Hope. Anyway, Al otro lado is a winner in cinema, in sincere storytelling, in transmitting the message with creation of beauty. Don't miss this one.

The movie is composed by three short films that, in appearance, are connected by a theme: the immigrants lacking identity papers. This it is not completely true if we set us in the plot of the story that happens in Cuba, where a boy wants to seek his father, an American citizen. In reality Al Otro Lado is the story of three children that want to enjoy his absent parents but are impeded by their economic situation; three stories that themselves turn in just one story of hope. The performances have many ups and downs, mostly mediocre. The score turns out to be contrasting, with certain melodies that integrate you to the plot, and others too corny that separate you form the film. The serious problem of the film is the edition; it does not achieve that the three short films be seen like a thematic whole. Perhaps, juxtaposing more the three stories, the movie would be more tolerable.