|
Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
THE MILK OF SORROW
The director’s much more interested in the psychosis of fear past down from mother to daughter. Fausta habitually walks close to walls away from the evil spirits she believes are wandering in the street. Afraid to walk alone, she insists on an escort to and from her home in the outskirts of the city. All nerves, she uses the songs that she has made up the way others take medication. Head down, eyes averted, she’s both compelling and frustrating. She’s so reserved and fragile that she makes The Glass Menagerie’s Laura look like a pillar of strength. Her behavior has roots in her family's history. She was the product of a rape more than 20 years ago during Peru’s long period of internal warfare, a trauma that her mother has endlessly recounted to her in song—the film begins with her dying mother singing to her daughter about the rape, her husband’s emasculation, and worse. To repel men, Fausta—there’s no way to put this delicately—has inserted a potato into her vagina. Fainting and prone to nose bleeds, she ignores a doctor’s concern about the festering bacteria inside her. Back home from the hospital, she folds the prescription he had given her into an origami swan, letting it sink into a tub of water. The first 15 minutes or so doesn’t rigidly set the tone for the rest of the film. In due course, the painstakingly composed cinematography seduces the viewer. Maybe it’s the pearls, but the use of light in the interior scenes is Vermeer-like. Colors, though coded for symbolism, don’t call too much attention to themselves. Llosa manages to film even the oddest scenes in a naturalistic way—Fausta’s way of thinking might be considered surreal, but the storytelling is grounded in her life. Her hometown slum at the top of an arid plateau is memorably contrasted with the sumptuousness garden of Doña Aida (Susi Sánchez), who never even bothers to learn her new employee’s name. Llosa weaves unmistakable symbolism into a lucidly told story that’s not weighed down by either politics (mostly inferred) or too many metaphors. It has
become customary to complain each year about the five nominees for the
best foreign-language Academy Award, a ritual that I have participated
in frequently. Based on this year’s nominations, I have to admit that
the recent revisions in the Academy’s selection procedures have paid off
handsomely. Though they may not all have been my personal favorites,
four out of the five selections were nowhere near the high-concept,
commercially-viable-if-it-weren’t-for-the-subtitles-fare that has
commonly been chosen over more ambitious work—and none of them were
set during World War II. That an unsettling yet embraceable film like
The Milk of Sorrow was selected is a welcoming sign.
Kent Turner
|
When a movie has a
main character named Fausta, it’s bound to feature some sort of bargain
with the devil. The Mephistophelean character, an ice-cold blond
aristocrat, promises to bestow upon her maid, Fausta (Magaly Solier), a strand of
pearls, one gem at a time, for literally a song. Instead of
eternal youth or riches, Fausta only wants enough money to transport her
mother’s corpse for burial. But the metaphoric fable of the devil and
her prey is just a sliver of Claudia Llosa’s second
feature film, which won the top prize last year at the Berlin Film
Festival.