Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life) (1994)

MI VIDA LOCA is a compelling look at a microcosm of East L.A.'s Echo Park. Writer and director Allison Anders (GAS FOOD LODGING) lived in the neighborhood for many years with her daughter, inspiring her to make this film about life in a Latina girl gang. The film is sympathetic to these young women, presenting their stories honestly and with a visual flair that the subjects themselves would probably appreciate. The stories are told as a series of vignettes with different narrators, each with his or her perspective on the events portrayed. This approach allows the characters the opportunity to explain their actions, giving the audience a better understanding of behavior they might otherwise easily condemn. The key players are Mousie (Seidy Lopez) and Sad Girl (Angel Aviles), best friends who let local drug dealer Ernesto (Jacob Vargas) come between them. The film is a wonderfully realized slice-of-life: sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, and, despite its seemingly incongruously elegeiac tone, with a strong ring of truth.