POPI

US, 1969, 113 minutes, Colour.
Alan Arkin, Rita Moreno, Miguel Alejandro, Ruben Figueroa.
Directed by Arthur Hiller.

Popi is a pleasant comedy concerning Puerto Ricans and their hard working, rough life in the New York slums. Popi, Alan Arkin, also dreams the American dream of having all that money can buy for his children and concocts an elaborate fantasy that involves going to Miami and setting his sons adrift as Cuban refugees in the hope that they will become national heroes. In a satirical look at American hero worship, they do. But Popi had not counted on human affection, and the dream is over. It is hard to escape from life. Just as the Two Little Boys got to the American heart, so a film like Popi gets through to an audience in a way that statistics do not, even though the statistics are more realistic than the film.

1. For what audience was this film made? Children and families? How enjoyable? How charming?

2. The emphasis on the title, on Popi? The song? The qualities of Alan Arkin's personality and performance? As a strength for the film?

3. How well did the film capture the atmosphere of Spanish Harlem? The details of the streets and tenements, the people and their way of life? Audience interest in and sympathy for the Puerto Ricans in New York? The contrast with the presentation of Florida and its atmosphere? The importance of presenting these two aspects of the American civilization?

4. How real did the plot seem to be? How plausible? As a way of examining social issues in modern America?

5. How did the film present Popi as a character? His personality, his aims in life. his hard work. his role as a farmerl his love for his children, his attachment to Lupe? The details of his hard life. the comic details eg. at the anti Castro banquet? A figure of comedy and pathos?

6. How important were the details of his work for creating plausibility for his plan for the children? The importance of the banquet sequence in terms of plot, comedy?

7. How attractive were the boys? How did they take after their father? Their relationship between themselves? The film's detailed attention to this? Their life in the tenement. their talk amongst themselvesf with the boys of the neighbourhood. their boasting about their father?

8. How important was Popi's desire for their education, for a better life for them? How desperate was he for them? Was it plausible that he concoct such a plan? His reasons? The details of their practice before they went to Florida? How enjoyable was this?

9. How attractive a character was Lupe? In herself, her relationship to Popi, to the children. to the involvement in the plot?

10. How did the atmosphere of Florida contrast with that of New York? A more affluent America? A new home for Popi’s children? A new way of life and style?

11. How desperate did he become in trying to get the plot going? Did he become slightly demented at this stage? Was the audience still with him in sympathy?

12. How game were the boys to participate in the plot? The suffering that they endured? Popi's anxiety when there was no news?

13. How enjoyable was their reception as Cuban heroes? The showering of gifts? The interviews and sequences in the hospital? The real generous heart of America? The satire on this overwhelming good nature of the Americans? (And not showering gifts on the poor that lived in such places as Spanish Harlem?)

14. How desperate did Popi become when the boys were celebrities? His visits to the hospital. his interference?

15. What was the effect of the success on the boys? on their relationship to their father?

16. How did the awareness of real love emerge from this experience? How authentic was this?

17. Was it inevitable that they should all end back where they started?

18. What was the moral of this fable? About people, about relationships, about social pressures in modern life, ambitions, America?