Diane Paragas
“I’ve been trying to make this movie for a long time, more than 15 years. And it was always about immigration.” It’s early fall 2020 when filmmaker Diane Paragas sits down to talk with us about her film, Yellow Rose. America is in the grips of the 2020 trifecta — a bizarre election season, the ravages of COVID-19 and national racial reckoning. Her story of Rose, an undocumented Filipino girl (played by Eva Noblezada) with dreams of becoming a country music star is aptly timed, and as lyrical as it is wrenching.
“The number one thing I look for in my own work, but also seek out in others is intention … what is it that you want to say about the world? And how do you want to say it?”
Yellow Rose is stunning in its execution and message. Early in the film, Rose finds herself cut adrift, a teenager with no papers and no safe place to call home. She cobbles together a group of allies, including an Austin dancehall owner (Libby Villari), country singer Dale Watson (playing himself) and a budding love interest, Elliot (Liam Booth). As she tries to navigate the immigration system, reconnect with her mother (Princess Punzalan) and pursue her dream, she also builds a precarious alliance with her aunt, played by the great Lea Salonga.
When she reflects on the years-long journey to get this film made, Paragas is certain the timing is perfect. “The fact that it’s coming out now — I certainly changed the script after Trump came into office, and all of these anti immigrant policies were coming forward,” she says. “I leaned more heavily into the immigration story. And I think the fact that we're coming out on Filipino American History Month, the fact that we're coming out during the month leading up to an election, the fact that it's finally coming out at all, and the fact that the anti-immigrant sentiment has never been worse, and now we have an added layer of anti-Asian sentiment … For all of those reasons, although it took me a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get here, this is the right time for this movie.”
“I think beyond all of that, it's that kind of movie that I think you go to the movie theater for,” she adds. “It has a cathartic feeling, and opens your eyes if you don't know what this immigrant experience is like. But it fills your heart with hope and music, and all of those things that make a theatrical experience magical. And I was shooting for that. I hope I got there. But it was certainly that kind of movie that I wanted to make.”
Paragas delivers. Yellow Rose walks the line so well between arthouse filmmaking and classic Hollywood storytelling. It’s visually gorgeous, thanks in part to Paragas and her cinematographer August Thurmer’s decision to shoot most of the film handheld and at close range. “We shot most of the film primarily on two lenses — a 50 and a 75 — Kowa anamorphic vintage lenses,” Paragas says. “When you shoot with anamorphic, and you come up close, you see everything, but you're right there. And that was something that I wanted to impart because it's a story of a Filipino girl who wants to be a country singer, I wanted it to give a very authentic portrayal to not be cartoonish. And everything was handheld. You feel the breathing of this character of the camera that's constantly throughout the film. You feel the urgency of any moment, somebody coming in the door, not knowing where your next home is going to be. And that sense of immediacy is the migrant experience.”
The close, wavering interior shots and rich colors call to mind films like Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels or Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen, while the exterior scenes luxuriate in big Texas skies, giving us a little room to stretch after breathless interior scenes, be they ICE facilities or suburban living rooms.
“There’s something when you feel the breathing of the camera that actually makes you look at a story a little bit differently,” she explains. “So that was all intentional. And the other thing that, stylistically we shot as a tip of the hat to John Ford — a lot of shots going up, like he used to shoot John Wayne into the sky. A lot of sky shots. And again, that was the reason is like 1970s vintage lenses. I wanted it to have a sort of timeless kind of feeling an old-timey feeling at the same time. The events around her are so present and so what's happening in the world today, so it was combination of trying to create a nostalgic feeling whilst being very immediate.”
The film is also gorgeous musically, thanks to Eva Noblezada’s impeccable voice that swings effortlessly from subtle to knock-you-on-your-ass. Dale Watson makes a great musical turn as well, while also playing a warts-and-all version of himself — he drinks a little too much, he’s not super woke and when the chips are down he’s a less-than-ideal mentor.
Watson’s character, as well as the bar owner played beautifully by Libby Villari, come in to help Rose more than once in the film, but Paragas is careful to avoid the “white saviors” trap. “That was very important to me that we don't do that,” she says. “She [Rose] is her own agency that drives her to the end of the film — not all of these wonderful people who do help her along the way. They're allies, but they're not saviors. There's a big, big difference.”
Rose does earn every good thing that comes to her in this film, just as she does not deserve the bad. The film, like life, is messy and complicated. We’re left with an ending that’s beautiful and hopeful, but not Hollywood happy. “I wanted that last scene to almost feel dreamlike,” Paragas says. “So there's colors that we introduced in that scene that are not anywhere prior to that in the film — the gold, the red, this sort of magical thing of getting on stage, fully realized is this young woman. You know, I want to stress it's not a fairy tale ending, you know, I won't spoil it, but it's not like she won the lottery.”
Yellow Rose is a beautiful film, and a challenging one. But most importantly, it’s authentic, it’s honest and it doesn’t shy away from hard truths. “For me as a filmmaker, almost the number one thing I look for in my own work, but also seek out in others is intention. What is your intention as you make this piece of art?“ Paragas says. “My intention for this movie was for the audience, I wanted to make a film that my Lola and my Titas would like, but also that would play to cinephiles, which is the other side of my life. It's a hard thing to try to create something for both of those audiences. Very difficult. But my intention was to create something for both, and I think you have to think about that as you find your voice — what is it that you want to say about the world? And how do you want to say it?”
Shooting any film is an exercise in faith. Everything is on the line every minute, and money is as tight as the schedule. Paragas pulled together an incredibly intimate story and gave it sweep and breadth. And she did it simply.
“I was finding the magic as I was we went along,” she says. “So a lot of it's extemporaneous. But at the same time, I wanted to tell a sweet story, a country story. Three chords and the truth.”
Learn more:
Yellow Rose
Music Video for “Square Peg, Round Hole,” sung by Eva Noblezada
