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La Llorona, 2019
Former military man Enrique (Julio Diaz) is on trial for his part in a brutal genocide of the native Mayan people of Guatemala, though he is protected by higher ups in the government. As protestors clamor and chant outside of his home, Enrique is watched over by his wife Carmen (Margarita Kenefic), his daughter Natalia (Sabrina De La Hoz), and his bodyguard Letona (Juan Pablo Olyslager). Natalia’s young daughter, Sara (Ayla-Elea Hurtado) is also part of the small delegation waiting inside of the house. When faithful servant Valeriana (Maria Telon) brings in a new servant named Alma (Maria Mercedes Coroy), strange visions and dreams begin to haunt the various members of the household.
Full of striking imagery and effectively making the horror of genocide intimate and personal, this is a winning, hard-hitting horror/drama.
As I wrote in a recent review, I have a certain appreciation for movies that are about what they are about and create a coherent vision and character arc. That’s definitely the case in this film, in which the crimes and cruelties of Enrique’s elderly General literally come back to haunt him.
What brings some unexpected energy and interest to this film is the fact that the revenge sought by the spirits of the dead isn’t only centered on Enrique---it’s also aimed at the people around Enrique who protect, excuse, and enable him.
Enrique’s main enabler is his wife, Carmen. She listens with what looks like disinterest to absolutely horrifying witness accounts of the way that her husband and his men murdered innocent men, women, and children, committed rapes, debased and dehumanized prisoners, and otherwise brought a rain of violence and pain down on a largely innocent indigenous group. After listening to a woman describe being raped, she coldly remarks that “native women” were always there to tempt Enrique. She frames her husband almost as a victim of his own sexual desires. And then the dreams begin.
There is something particularly insidious about genocide, in that the very scale of it renders it somewhat abstract. If someone says that five or ten people were killed---that is something you can picture in your mind. But if someone says 3000 people were killed, the mind simply fails. This film does a fantastic job of balancing that sense of a swath of destruction while keeping an immediacy to the horrors it portrays. Carmen’s dreams, in which she tries to protect her two young children from encroaching soldiers, push her into the vivid reality of a victim. Paired with a stand-out sequence in which a woman testifies about the violence done to her and to her family (her testimony in her native language communicated to the court accurately but without passion by an interpreter), the specifics and scope of Enrique’s cruelty is not allowed to slide into abstraction.
Much of the supernatural bent of the film relates to Alma, the mysterious new servant. (The old servants are dismissed, all of them native, some of them without pay, and threatened not to complain or they won’t get recommendations for new jobs). Alma immediately bonds with Sara, and one begins to wonder how the child will play into whatever the long game is for the vengeful spirits. Will Sara be spared because of her innocence? Will she be taken as revenge for all of the children who were needlessly, cruelly killed by Enrique’s men? This lingering question of Alma’s intentions toward Sara adds charge to all of their scenes together.
There are also some really beautiful moments in this film. Alma has a luxurious sweep of long black hair, and in one scene the hair billows around her as if she is caught in a strong wind indoors. In the courtroom scene, the woman testifying speaks from behind a thick veil, one that renders her pale and eerie. She is a survivor, and yet her story might just as well be the voice of one of the many dead.
Something I really enjoyed about this film was the way that it interrogates degrees of complicity. There’s no question that Enrique is a monster, and that he deserves what is coming to him. But does Carmen deserve death for her loyalty to her husband and the way that she has turned a blind eye to his crimes? Does Natalia deserve death for continuing to care for her father, though she is disturbed by what she learns about him? What about Sara, who wasn’t even alive when his crimes were committed and seems to know nothing about them? What about Letona, who works hard to protect a man who has brought pain and death to so many? It is easy to accept and even look forward to Enrique’s comeuppance, but the film spends most of its time forcing us to reckon with what justice might look like for all of the people tangential to Enrique.
This was another very solid recommendation and I’d encourage everyone to check it out (and make sure you are choosing the correct film---the 2019 film from Guatemala---as it is a very common title).
La Llorona, 2019
Former military man Enrique (Julio Diaz) is on trial for his part in a brutal genocide of the native Mayan people of Guatemala, though he is protected by higher ups in the government. As protestors clamor and chant outside of his home, Enrique is watched over by his wife Carmen (Margarita Kenefic), his daughter Natalia (Sabrina De La Hoz), and his bodyguard Letona (Juan Pablo Olyslager). Natalia’s young daughter, Sara (Ayla-Elea Hurtado) is also part of the small delegation waiting inside of the house. When faithful servant Valeriana (Maria Telon) brings in a new servant named Alma (Maria Mercedes Coroy), strange visions and dreams begin to haunt the various members of the household.
Full of striking imagery and effectively making the horror of genocide intimate and personal, this is a winning, hard-hitting horror/drama.
As I wrote in a recent review, I have a certain appreciation for movies that are about what they are about and create a coherent vision and character arc. That’s definitely the case in this film, in which the crimes and cruelties of Enrique’s elderly General literally come back to haunt him.
What brings some unexpected energy and interest to this film is the fact that the revenge sought by the spirits of the dead isn’t only centered on Enrique---it’s also aimed at the people around Enrique who protect, excuse, and enable him.
Enrique’s main enabler is his wife, Carmen. She listens with what looks like disinterest to absolutely horrifying witness accounts of the way that her husband and his men murdered innocent men, women, and children, committed rapes, debased and dehumanized prisoners, and otherwise brought a rain of violence and pain down on a largely innocent indigenous group. After listening to a woman describe being raped, she coldly remarks that “native women” were always there to tempt Enrique. She frames her husband almost as a victim of his own sexual desires. And then the dreams begin.
There is something particularly insidious about genocide, in that the very scale of it renders it somewhat abstract. If someone says that five or ten people were killed---that is something you can picture in your mind. But if someone says 3000 people were killed, the mind simply fails. This film does a fantastic job of balancing that sense of a swath of destruction while keeping an immediacy to the horrors it portrays. Carmen’s dreams, in which she tries to protect her two young children from encroaching soldiers, push her into the vivid reality of a victim. Paired with a stand-out sequence in which a woman testifies about the violence done to her and to her family (her testimony in her native language communicated to the court accurately but without passion by an interpreter), the specifics and scope of Enrique’s cruelty is not allowed to slide into abstraction.
Much of the supernatural bent of the film relates to Alma, the mysterious new servant. (The old servants are dismissed, all of them native, some of them without pay, and threatened not to complain or they won’t get recommendations for new jobs). Alma immediately bonds with Sara, and one begins to wonder how the child will play into whatever the long game is for the vengeful spirits. Will Sara be spared because of her innocence? Will she be taken as revenge for all of the children who were needlessly, cruelly killed by Enrique’s men? This lingering question of Alma’s intentions toward Sara adds charge to all of their scenes together.
There are also some really beautiful moments in this film. Alma has a luxurious sweep of long black hair, and in one scene the hair billows around her as if she is caught in a strong wind indoors. In the courtroom scene, the woman testifying speaks from behind a thick veil, one that renders her pale and eerie. She is a survivor, and yet her story might just as well be the voice of one of the many dead.
Something I really enjoyed about this film was the way that it interrogates degrees of complicity. There’s no question that Enrique is a monster, and that he deserves what is coming to him. But does Carmen deserve death for her loyalty to her husband and the way that she has turned a blind eye to his crimes? Does Natalia deserve death for continuing to care for her father, though she is disturbed by what she learns about him? What about Sara, who wasn’t even alive when his crimes were committed and seems to know nothing about them? What about Letona, who works hard to protect a man who has brought pain and death to so many? It is easy to accept and even look forward to Enrique’s comeuppance, but the film spends most of its time forcing us to reckon with what justice might look like for all of the people tangential to Enrique.
This was another very solid recommendation and I’d encourage everyone to check it out (and make sure you are choosing the correct film---the 2019 film from Guatemala---as it is a very common title).