Mama Illegal Film Review notes

Mama Illegal focuses on small samplings of the struggled life in Eastern Europe.

Aurica, Raia and Natasa are mothers who left their children and husbands behind, risked

their life to cross borders illegally. They were busy scheduled working as housekeepers

and homecare givers in Austria and Italy with low incomes and no guarantee with sick

leave and health care program. All these years, they worked hard and hoped to get legal

paper so that they can find better jobs and go home frequently without paying money

to traffickers. In other hand, their young children had to grow up without parents’

company and caring.

The film reveals a small but common case in Moldova, which blames the cause on

the unequal economic development between Moldova and western European countries.

Moldova is still considered as the poorest country in European realm. From physical

geography, Moldova is a landlocked area which relies heavily on its agriculture export

and results in high unemployment rates. From political geography, Moldova was a

member of Russia and Soviet Union, which somehow in the history against western

Europe and NATO. Although in the recent years Moldova has been spending efforts to

improve its economy and infrastructure, but still has a long way to reach the standard

of joining EU. Since nineteenth century, Moldova was experiencing low speed of development

by the last wave influence from industrial revolution. If this country is still getting behind and

forgotten by other European countries, more and more empty houses and labour outflow will

appear and the culture traditions will be ruined.