Romantic comedy 'The Arrangement' is almost entirely in the Navajo language

“The Arrangement” is, in a lot of ways, a lot like other romantic comedies. Two mothers try to set up their adult — but still single — children, hoping they’ll hit it off. It’s the start of what will be an arranged marriage. There’s a language barrier and comedy ensues.

But, there’s one way in which it’s not at all like other romantic comedies: It’s almost entirely in the Navajo language.

The project began with a grant from the Navajo Nation Film Office, which required them to use at least 80% Navajo in the film. It was an attempt to breathe new life into the dying language.

And, for filmmaker Shonie De La Rosa, it was a challenge. As he told The Show, arranged marriages were quite common on the Navajo Nation throughout its history, and, it turns out, they’re not unheard of today.

Full conversation

SHONIE DE LA ROSA: I've actually got two friends of mine that were an arranged marriage. I didn't know that for the longest time till one day, one of them told me, and I was like, oh wow, you know, and all kinds of questions popped into my head cause I never met anybody that was in an arranged marriage.

And then I'd say a couple of years later, another friend of mine in conversation said that he was in an arranged marriage as well.

And also, so questions were bound, you know, I mean, you know, anybody would have a lot of questions, you know, I was like, what was it like? Did you know her? How did you feel? Were you scared? Things like that.

And, you know, when I, when I was a young man, my, my grandmother, my late grandmother used to tease me a lot about marrying me off. She told me a lot about arranged marriages and why they were, and, you know, how common they were back in the day, even in her days they were quite common.

LAUREN GILGER: So maybe still a little more common today than even you realized it sounds like if you know two friends of the bat.

DE LA ROSA: Possibly, possibly could be, yeah.

GILGER: So it sounds like you picked their brains to try to, you know, do some research for this film, writing the script, etc.

What did they tell you about, about how this came to be and how they felt about being in an arranged marriage today?

DE LA ROSA: One friend of mine, I asked him, you know, I said, you know, did you know her? He says, Yeah, I went to school with her, but never in a million years did I think I'd ever marry her. I just remember her being kind of mean, you know. But on the day, wedding day came, she came walking in. I was like, oh, wow, I'm gonna marry her, you know.

So they've had a long-lasting relationship. I've been married with my wife for about 38, 38 years last month was our wedding anniversary.

GILGER: Wow, congratulations.

DE LA ROSA: Yeah, so my friends, their, their marriages have lasted just as long. Their arranged marriages.

But the idea for, for the movie just kind of popped into my head. I guess the catalyst for it was my wife. She likes to watch those Korean rom-coms on Netflix and I kind of get pulled into that with her, and one day she said, maybe you should try to make something like that, you know, and I was like, well, we'll see, you know, and then one day this idea popped into my head.

Maybe I would try making a romantic comedy, but of what? And then when I just thought, why not do it about an arranged marriage.

GILGER: OK, so let's talk about the use of the Navajo language in this movie because it's mostly in Navajo and that's a big part of the plot line, right, because in this arranged marriage, Harold here is introduced to Rita, who doesn't really speak any English, right? She only speaks in Navajo.

And I know this movie began with a grant from the Navajo Nation Film Office to write and produce a short film using at least 80% Navajo in the film. This obviously became a little longer than that, but talk a little bit about approaching a film, mostly using this language.

DE LA ROSA: I, I personally am not a Navajo speaker. I don't speak fluent Navajo. I speak just tiny little bits and fragments of it, but I've been around it the vast majority of my life, and I kind of know how Navajo's delivered. I understand more of the language than I can speak it.

Navajo is a very powerful language. It's very descriptive. Things that are said in Navajo just seem to hit a lot different then if you were to say it in English. So having it done in Navajo and when people watch the movie that speak and understand Navajo, it's gonna hit good, you know, it's gonna hit good.

GILGER: I mean, there's something really profound about that, right, because the Navajo language is being lost rapidly and it seems like that's probably part of what this effort was about from the Navajo Nation Film Office to try to preserve this language, but what did it mean to you personally like you, you said you you yourself don't even know the language fluently?

DE LA ROSA: Yeah, when I was young, I, let's go back when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. I live here on the Navajo Nation and, and I remember back then almost everybody spoke Navajo, everywhere you want everybody spoke Navajo. And nowadays it's like hardly anybody speaks Navajo.

It's … our language is slowly dying. I think bringing back the language and showing how beautiful and powerful and strong it is, is really important.

The lead character in the film, he speaks Navajo, but it's not very good as the character in the story, and his mother's pressuring him to speak Navajo, use it more when he goes over to his, you know, soon to be bride’s home to go through the in-law test.

They only speak Navajo there, so he's forced to speak Navajo the best he can, and yet they correct him, you know, and he gets better and better at it, you know, but, you know, it's like me, when I try to speak some words in that, I'll butcher it really, really bad, and I'll say something completely wrong or completely appalling, and that's also depicted in the film as well.

GILGER: There seems to be a common kind of cultural tension there, right in this generation of people trying to to speak this language they're not incredibly fluent in. I wonder, you talked about the power of the Navajo language and trying to convey that, but, but this is a romantic comedy, right?

So it's interesting because it's, it's kind of this modern film genre and, and I wonder what you thought about trying to use Navajo in that way like you're also to show that it's funny.

DE LA ROSA: Yeah, well, it, the film takes place in modern times. I don't have a single cellphone in any of the shots. I don't have a TV, nothing because this is like out in the middle of nowhere on the Navajo Nation, and, you know, most people tend to just listen to the radio work, take care of their sheep, their homestead, things like that, you know.

And so I kinda, I kinda wanted to show that a lot of our lives these days are consumed with technology, you know, special social media, and I didn't want to really depict any of that in the film.

I kind of wanted to pick it that way along with Navajo, you know, and show the importance of the language, respecting your elders and being a hard worker, you know, things like that, you know, and it's kind of some of the messages that are in the film.

You know, and it's, it's, like I said, it's a romantic comedy. It's something I have never done in my life ever. A lot of my past works are shocking on satire and things like that, you know, but all of us were really proud of what we did, you know, we're real happy that everybody enjoys the movie and it is subtitled in English, so you don't have to be a Navajo speaker or understand Navajo in order to watch and understand the movie, but it is a lot better if you understand Navajo.