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The reverberations of the Shining Path guerrilla war that plagued Peru in the 1980s materialize in a wholly bizarre and folkloric way in Claudia Llosa's lovely second feature, The Milk of Sorrow. It would have been easy to take the brutality of this turbulent period and milk it for all of its simplistic emotional potential. But Llosa, who also wrote the film, chooses to focus on the boulder-sized psychological trauma that an elderly woman passes down to her daughter.
By the time we meet the elderly woman who was raped and beaten by members of the Shining Path, she is singing an achingly sad song about her life to her quiet, twenty-something daughter, Fausta (Magaly Solier). At the end of her song, the mother passes away quite suddenly and the task of burying her properly becomes the burden of both Fausta and her uncle Lucido (Marino Ballón). A trip to the doctor, however, reveals something odd about Fausta, pushing the film into the realm of magical realism.
It appears that a potato has been placed inside Fausta's vagina. The young, shy woman reveals that she did this for fear of being raped. The potato has now taken root and is, well, outgrowing her: In two artfully handled scenes, Fausta clips buds off of the vegetable. Not wanting for suitors -- she is approached by both a gardener and a friend of her cousin's husband -- Fausta nonetheless remains alone as she attempts to raise money for her mother's final passing into the earth. This entails her taking a job as a maid for a well-to-do lady in a gated bungalow.
The crux of the film may have come off as preposterous had Llosa, who made quite the impression with her debut film Madeinusa, not been such an acute observer of behavior. With plenty of sight gags (an out-sized gown train) and black humor (a preliminary grave doubling as a swimming hole), the film is undeniably eccentric. The director also avoids strained melodrama with an odd but refined visual style, favoring uneasy close-ups, gorgeous medium-shot compositions, and distanced long takes. Llosa and the talented cinematographer Natasha Braier (Somers Town) often compose off-center shots that only disclose small sections of familiar scenes. Similarly, ubiquitous themes involving motherhood, fear of history repeated, and both economical and political corruption are laid delicately, often invoked by a solitary image or hushed utterance. Romance only blooms in the film's final, lovely shot and, taken to flights of song, Fausta remains generally isolated from her sincerely loving family.
The Milk of Sorrow, a shocker Oscar nominee and winner of both the FIPRESCI Prize and Golden Bear at last year's Berlin International Film Festival, may not be an especially groundbreaking film -- its narrative is more fascinating than its efficient form. But films of this ilk, perhaps because of their humble nature, subtle stylization, and restrained intentions, are exactly the kind of emotionally nourishing and unique works taken for granted. In fact, having only seen one other Peruvian film (Llosa's aforementioned debut), I can comfortably say that I have never seen a finer film come out of Peru than The Milk of Sorrow.
Aka La teta asustada.
By the time we meet the elderly woman who was raped and beaten by members of the Shining Path, she is singing an achingly sad song about her life to her quiet, twenty-something daughter, Fausta (Magaly Solier). At the end of her song, the mother passes away quite suddenly and the task of burying her properly becomes the burden of both Fausta and her uncle Lucido (Marino Ballón). A trip to the doctor, however, reveals something odd about Fausta, pushing the film into the realm of magical realism.
It appears that a potato has been placed inside Fausta's vagina. The young, shy woman reveals that she did this for fear of being raped. The potato has now taken root and is, well, outgrowing her: In two artfully handled scenes, Fausta clips buds off of the vegetable. Not wanting for suitors -- she is approached by both a gardener and a friend of her cousin's husband -- Fausta nonetheless remains alone as she attempts to raise money for her mother's final passing into the earth. This entails her taking a job as a maid for a well-to-do lady in a gated bungalow.
The crux of the film may have come off as preposterous had Llosa, who made quite the impression with her debut film Madeinusa, not been such an acute observer of behavior. With plenty of sight gags (an out-sized gown train) and black humor (a preliminary grave doubling as a swimming hole), the film is undeniably eccentric. The director also avoids strained melodrama with an odd but refined visual style, favoring uneasy close-ups, gorgeous medium-shot compositions, and distanced long takes. Llosa and the talented cinematographer Natasha Braier (Somers Town) often compose off-center shots that only disclose small sections of familiar scenes. Similarly, ubiquitous themes involving motherhood, fear of history repeated, and both economical and political corruption are laid delicately, often invoked by a solitary image or hushed utterance. Romance only blooms in the film's final, lovely shot and, taken to flights of song, Fausta remains generally isolated from her sincerely loving family.
The Milk of Sorrow, a shocker Oscar nominee and winner of both the FIPRESCI Prize and Golden Bear at last year's Berlin International Film Festival, may not be an especially groundbreaking film -- its narrative is more fascinating than its efficient form. But films of this ilk, perhaps because of their humble nature, subtle stylization, and restrained intentions, are exactly the kind of emotionally nourishing and unique works taken for granted. In fact, having only seen one other Peruvian film (Llosa's aforementioned debut), I can comfortably say that I have never seen a finer film come out of Peru than The Milk of Sorrow.
Aka La teta asustada.
