Calavera Highway

(Documentary -- U.S. - Mexico)

A Rosasboys production in association with the American Documentary/P.O.V. and Latino Public Broadcasting. Produced by Evangeline Griego, Renee Tajima-Pena. Executive producer, Jeff Bieber. Directed by Renee Tajima-Pena.

With: Armando, Carlos, Luis, Lupe, Raul, Robert and Junior Pena, Rosa Morales, Aunt Adela.

Docu "Calavera Highway" proves twisty in both geographic and psychological terms, following the long, wayward journey undertaken by a Los Angeles son to deliver his mother's ashes home to Texas -- stopping to visit each of his six brothers en route. They shared a difficult, mostly fatherless childhood and have gone in disparate directions since. Engaging personal cinema with a few family-secret revelations en route, this latest from Renee Tajima-Pena ("Who Killed Vincent Chin?") is skedded for broadcast on PBS' "P.O.V." Sept. 23, but should enjoy fest play at least until then.

The Mexican-American Morales boys were raised pretty much alone by Rosa, seen in home movies but already dead of cancer as the pic begins. She'd spent her last months with Armando, the family's only white-collar worker and a bookworm who always seemed cut from a different cloth than his streetwise elder sibs. He's also the inspiration for the film, since he's the helmer's husband.

Abandoned by their father, a Mexican national, in 1954, Rosa and the kids, unaided by her own family -- which for reasons unclear in the docu had basically disowned her -- were left to toil as agricultural hands. A tough woman active in labor organizing, Rosa dumped her second husband when she discovered he was beating her sons.

While Armando is eager to discover more about her history, his brothers aren't so sure they want to revisit an oft-painful past, including migrant counselor Carlos, who accompanies his sib (along with Renee and irrepressible young son Gabe) on the trip. The Pena fraternity has reacted to adversity very differently: One brother is a born-again Christian who for some time refused to speak to the others, thinking mom's cremation (which she'd requested) was against Bible doctrine. Two more are ex-cons.

Traveling as far north as Washington state and as far south as "vanished" father Pedro Pena's remote Mexican home village -- where Armando and Carlos discover what became of him -- the pic addresses in a nonpedantic way how fatherlessness is experienced by different personalities. It's an involving story told in straightforward fashion.

Tech credits are adequate.

Camera (color, DV, HD, Hi-8 to HDcam), Jonathan Schell, Tajima-Pena; editor, Joahanna Demetrakas; music, Brian Kirk, Sharon Smith; sound, Sara Chin, Joe Milner. Reviewed at San Francisco Intl. Film Festival, May 7, 2008. Running time: 87 MIN.

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