Toni, meanwhile, becomes a nun, goes to South America, gets "political," and comes home to present her family with a big surprise, in one of the many scenes that mix social commentary with humor. Memo (Enrique Castillo) does become a lawyer (and tells his Anglo in-laws that his name is "basically Spanish for "Bill").

In one of the movie's best sequences, Toni (Constance Marie), now an activist in L.A., becomes concerned by the plight of a young woman from El Salvador who is about to be deported and faces death because of the politics of her family. She persuades Jimmy (Jimmy Smits) to marry her and save her from deportation, and in a sequence that is first hilarious and later quite moving, Jimmy does.

(Instead of kissing the bride, he mutters "you owe me" ominously at his activist sister.) This relationship between Jimmy and Isabel (Elpidia Carrillo) leads to a love scene of great beauty, as they share their stories of pain and loss.

In the scenes set in the 1950s and 1980s, Jose and Maria are played by Eduardo Lopez Rojas and Jenny Gago. They wake up at night worrying about their children ("thank God for Memo going to law school," Paco says, "or they would have never gotten a night's sleep"). Jimmy, so tortured by the loss of his brother, is a special concern. But the family pulls together, and Paco observes, "In my home, the difference between a family emergency and a party wasn't that big." Nava, whose earlier films include the great "El Norte" (1984), which won an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, has an inspired sense of color and light, and his movie has a visual freedom you rarely see on the screen. Working with cinematographer Ed Lachman, he uses color filters, smoke, shafts of sunlight and other effects to make some scenes painterly with beauty and color - and he has used a painter, Patssi Valdez, to design the interior of the Sanchez home. The movie is not just in color, but in colors.

Through all the beauty, laughter and tears, the strong heart of the family beats, and everything leads up to a closing scene, between old Jose and Marie, that is quiet, simple, joyous and heartbreaking. Rarely have I felt at the movies such a sense of time and history, of stories and lessons passing down the generations, of a family living in its memories.

Their story is the story of one Mexican-American family, but it is also in some ways the story of all families. Watching it, I was reminded of my own family's legends and heroes and stray sheep, and the strong sense of home. "Another country?" young Jose says, when he is told where Los Angeles is. "What does that mean - `another country'?"

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