The Milk of Sorrow, 2009 (Grade D)

Director Claudia Llosa

Awards: Nominated for and Academy Award

Cast: Magaly Solier; Susi Sanchez; Efrain Solis;  Barbara Lazon; Delci Heredia; Karla Heredia; Fernando Caychol  Miller Revilla Chengay; Spencer Salazar

Plot summary--spoiler alert:  Fausta is the child of a woman who was raped during Peru's Civil Wars--Her mother was pregnant with Fausta when this happened and she spent her life singing to Fausta about the event. Fausta knows her mothers songs well.  Fausta has thus been stricken with a pathological fear that she "contracted from her mother's breast milk" which is the title: The "milk of sorrow,"  Fausta (Magaly Solier) inserts a potato in her vagina to protect her own sexuality and safety. She is a sick young woman--afraid  of the world.  When her mother dies she is driven to take a job to earn some money in order to take her mother's body home "to her village' to be buried.  Her new employer is a wealthy woman who is a musician who hears Fausta sing -- and we watch the woman steal (and take credit for) Fausta's music --and we are shown that there is more than one way the rich and powerful rape the poor.

sez says:  really rather slow and boring--and the potato is a bit too much-- I am sympathetic and generally support--and find vitality in stories that try and deal with the issues of abuses of power and how common people resist. but this was just the story of a disturbed girl...with no exit. or solution to her problem.  Sweet family she came from, running a wedding business was the saving grace.

mjc says: life goes on so best not to stash your dead mother under the bed--better to bury the dead and their horrors