Documentary Takes Bicultural Look at Day of the Dead

FULLERTON — Anticipating the arrival of El Dia de los Muertes (the Day of the Dead) on Sunday, Fullerton Museum Center starting today will show a video documentary that contrasts the way the holiday is celebrated in Mexico and the United States.

The Mexican tradition honoring the dead, a mix of pre-Columbian Mexican Indian and Catholic concepts, is thousands of years old. Its U.S. observance saw a resurgence in the 1970s as a result of the Chicano rights movement, said Lourdes Portillo, who produced and directed “La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead,” with fellow San Francisco filmmaker Susana Munoz.

Portillo shot the 50-minute film in the United States and Mexico in 1988 and 1989. The two countries’ disparate celebrations mirror fundamental differences in their attitudes about death, she said.

In Mexican culture, death is “accepted as a part of life, and not seen as something foreign which happens only to other people,” she said. Each Nov. 1, when the spirits of the dead are believed to return to Earth for a spell, celebrants traditionally visit cemeteries with ofrendas --offerings of favorite foods or sweets for their dearly departed.

“You go to the cemetery and you wait for the dead to come and visit you, which happens at midnight, and then they leave at daybreak and the church bells ring,” Portillo said.

In the United States, where death is viewed negatively or denied altogether, most observe the holiday by constructing altars for the deceased and a few visit cemeteries, she said. In the film, a San Francisco teacher shows pupils how to build an altar; another teacher lovingly crafts an altar for a friend who died of AIDS.

“It’s the making of something to honor the dead or creation of something that is meaningful here. . . . You set things up in order to control (fate) somewhat.”

“La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead” has won several awards, including a first prize at the 1990 American Film and Video Festival, Portillo said.

“One of the reasons this film is so important is that it (treats) death as a very natural and accepted aspect of life,” she said.

* “La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead” will be shown continuously todaythrough Sunday at Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton. Museum hours: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Screenings are free with museum admission of $1 to $2. (714) 738-6545.