Every once in a while a film comes along that is so subterranean, so sublime and subtle, that it practically erases the process of filmmaking. The work lets you sit in the dark with hundreds of perfect strangers and not think about camera work. Special effects never occur to you. You don't think about your boss or the government or the laundry. The script is constructed to vanish and the direction is imperceptible. Every once in a while, images smack down onto a screen and any audience lucky enough to behold the work is carried to that story with no tendrils of connection to the mundane demands of life. A true cinematic experience crafted with an audience as winners, instead of the creators.

"Quinceañera" is just such an achievement. Set in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles, directing/screenwriting team Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzner give us the stories of Carlos and Magdalena, each struggling with situations that various cultures would have them name "inner demons." Carlos, a former thug thrown out of his house for his burgeoning sexual proclivities, slips into an affair with his landlords, a wealthy, white gay couple who own the back house Carlos lives in with his great-granduncle Tomas. The doomed tripling (because it becomes an eventual covert coupling) results in disaster that casts a long look at how power, class, and race play out in gentrifying areas. The script blows apart studly stereotypes with the help of an astoundingly quiet-storm performance from Jesse Garcia as Carlos.

Meanwhile, Carlos's young cousin Magdalena finds herself in a situation of her own that leads her to pack a bag and leave her home to join Carlos under Tio Tomas's roof. On the verge of her own party of the film's title, Magdalena spends the first part of the film trying to fit into an altered fancy dress from her slightly older, significantly wealthier cousin. The quinceañera is a traditional party, not unlike a bat mitzvah, that celebrates a 15-year-old girl's transition into womanhood and onto her new spiritual path. Magdalena's growing bulge, acquired from a rare case of heavy petting that results in her pregnancy, provides actress Emily Rios a vehicle to bring her magic to the young girl saddled with all the scorn of a whore and none of the benefits.

With both the 2006 Sundance Film Festival audience and jury prizes deservedly in hand, distribution of "Quinceañera" is just around the corner. Keep your eyes peeled for a silver screen near you.

-- Sara Seinberg