Overcoming Sorrow:The Struggle of PeruvianCinema and its Promise ofProgress in Claudia Llosa’s

The Milk of Sorrow (2008)

Johnny Gustavo Herrera Taboada

Clark University

Screen Studies Department

April 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

3

I. Introduction

4

II. The Milk of Sorrow: The Golden Peruvian Film

31

2

III. Conclusion

62

Works Cited and Filmography

70

ACKNOLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to Professors

Marcia Butzel and Michael Siegel for their support and

advice throughout my research and writing processes for the

present thesis. Being this the first time I get involved in

such a large-scale and demanding project I cannot imagine

3

its completion without their presence as considerate thesis

advisors. I also thank them for sharing their knowledge and

passion for film with me throughout my undergraduate

education. This last recognition goes to my thesis readers

Professors Hugh Manon and Stephanie Larrieux as well.

A special salutation goes to University of Lima

Professor Emilio Bustamante for his openhanded assistance on

the preliminary stage of my investigation. Counting upon a

major expert on Peruvian cinema and a kind individual for

the formulation of my thesis subject was an invaluable aid.

Finally, my deepest gratitude goes to my supportive

friends—for their daily positive energy throughout each

semester—and relatives, especially to my parents Johnny and

Cecilia without whom I would not have afforded a world-class

education at Clark University and, more significantly,

without whom I would not have the essential love to overcome

all my challenges in life. Los amo infinitamente.

4

I. INTRODUCTION

As part of his discussion of world cinema in Beginning

Film Studies, film scholar Andrew Dix wonders about “the vast

areas of the globe” whose cinemas “remain relatively

unmapped” for the Anglophone academia, setting as examples

the absent “cartographies of Mauritanian [and] Peruvian

film.”1 As a Peruvian citizen, I find this statement quite

surprising since I had not read a reference to my home

country’s cinema in a foreign academic text before. I am not

surprised however about Dix’s insinuation that Peruvian

cinema has the same level of global prominence as the cinema

of a country with less than half the population of Peru’s

capital city. After all, Peruvian films have been rarely

successful not only overseas but also within Peru itself.

Thus, I grew up in Lima mostly watching movies from

Hollywood, Europe and other Latin American countries since

local film critics and moviegoers would express their 1 Andrew Dix, Beginning Film Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 278.

5

disappointment about the majority of Peruvian productions

from the last twenty years.

Peruvian cinema has indeed failed to establish a truly

prosperous relationship with its national viewers since the

time of its inception due to the unsophisticated visual

quality and amateurish narration of most of its productions.

That there are “good, bad and horrible [Peruvian films],

from the most vulgar commercial exploitation to authorial

integrity”2 confirms this enduring artistic instability. Its

overall inability to measure up with foreign film

powerhouses like Hollywood or to other Latin American

cinemas has been such that even filmmakers have questioned

the transcendence of Peruvian cinema as a form of cultural

representation, that is as an artistic rendering of the

common attributes and beliefs that hold the members of a

social group together. Consequently, even major figures

related to Peruvian cinema like director Armando Robles

Godoy have expressed hopeless perspectives about it, arguing

for instance that “if you disappear cinema from Peruvian 2Oscar Contreras, “¿Qué es el cine peruano?,” Ventana indiscreta No1 (2009): 60.

6

culture, nothing happens.”3 Peruvian film critic Javier

Protzel is severer in his assessment by claiming that

Peruvian films cannot qualify as a genuine national cinema

“if by [national cinema] we understand a corpus of works

relatively united by thematic and stylistic affinities,

produced with certain continuity throughout time and one

where their identities are recognized and their collective

imaginations are built.”4

As understandable as these dissatisfying and

pessimistic views about Peruvian cinema may be, I do not

support them or consider them wholly fair evaluations. While

I do not intend to challenge their perception of Peruvian

films as anything but a genuine national cinema, I find it

crucial to acknowledge the fact that Peruvian cinema is very

much still alive in spite of the many challenges it has

faced through its development. More significantly, I would

like to demonstrate in this thesis project that there is

3 Armando Robles Godoy, “Si el cine peruano desaparece no pasa nada,” interview by Isaac León Frías and Ricardo Bedoya, La gran ilusión No. 6 (1996): 105.4 Javier Protzel, Imaginarios sociales e imaginarios cinematográficos (Lima: Universidad de Lima Fondo Editorial), 207.

7

enough evidence to consider it a longstanding and

diversified—albeit inconsistent—filmmaking tradition out of

which a potential cartography can be produced. A superficial

overview of Peruvian cinema indeed would prove that it is a

quite complex film system in which different kinds of

artists and distinct cultural backgrounds are represented:

from prolific contemporary filmmaker Francisco Lombardi and

lesser known yet thriving regional cinema director Palito

Ortega Matute to countercultural auteur Armando Robles Godoy

and Hollywood-backed metteur en scène Luis Llosa. The fact

that most Peruvians ignore or minimize the value of the work

of these artists throughout the last hundred years—from the

first travelogue-like silent short films made in the early

1900’s to the most recent (and unprecedented) comedy hit Asu

Mare (Ricardo Maldonado, 2013) and other few commercially

successful titles from last year5—certainly complicates the

consolidation of Peruvian cinema as a well-regarded cultural

manifestation. This makes it all the more pertinent to 5 See “Las diez películas peruanas más vistas en el 2013” (http://www.larepublica.pe/31-12-2013/las-diez-peliculas-peruanas-mas-vistas-en-el-2013) for a full account on the top ten Peruvian films at the national box office in 2013.

8

explore it and (try to) understand the key to its

unexpectedly persistent expansion.

While it cannot be compared to well-established cinemas

like those of France or Mexico since “Peruvian cinema never

had a [prominent] position in the global [film] market,”6 it

cannot be considered a completely fruitless body of films

with respect to both critical and commercial acclaim. Thus,

“in a hundred years of cinema [history], Peru has produced a

handful of films with a very distinguished level of

expression,” an accomplishment that becomes more remarkable

when considering that “the most gifted directors have worked

without the support of an industrial tradition, technical

infrastructure, economic nor educational incentives.”7

Indeed, Peruvian cinema has been devoid of any kind of

support from the national government for most of its

existence. Only between the years 1972 and 1992 did Peruvian

cinema attained relatively steady progress thanks to the

creation of a highly supportive film law. Given its repeal,

6 Oscar Contreras, “Qué es el cine peruano?”, 60. 7 Idem.

9

however, contemporary Peruvian audiences have witnessed only

infrequent commercial and critical achievements.

One of the latter kinds of achievements—and indeed, far

and away the most critically acclaimed Peruvian film of all

time—is Claudia Llosa’s La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow,

2009). A Peruvian-Spanish co-production, The Milk of Sorrow

acquired such a high merit for winning the 2009 Berlin Film

Festival’s Golden Bear award and for being nominated to the

2010 Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category, two

unprecedented recognitions for Peruvian cinema that were

celebrated by most Peruvian moviegoers and critics alike.

While it did not break any box office records, Llosa’s film

acquires exceptional relevance since it elevated the

prestige of Peru within the realm of world cinema and

inspired one of the few major instances of optimism

regarding Peruvian cinema. Though it did not imply a radical

change in Peruvian film production as only a few notable

films were released sporadically afterwards—none of which

came close to its aforementioned recognitions—The Milk of Sorrow

revitalized Peruvian cinema to a certain extent by making

10

Peruvian audiences became (a little) more cognizant about

their cinema and its potential to deliver intriguing, first-

rate productions. Llosa’s film also proved that it was

possible to convey an engaging cinematic experience in spite

of foregrounding a difficult subject such as the trauma left

on abused women during Peru’s internal conflict. In this

sense, it set the bar for Peruvian cinema to an unparalleled

height.

Had it not been for The Milk of Sorrow‘s critical success

and that of a couple of subsequent productions like

Contracorriente (Undertow, Javier Fuentes-León, 2009) and Las

malas intenciones (The Bad Intentions, Rosario García-Montero,

2011), I would have probably remained as indifferent towards

Peruvian cinema as many other fellow Peruvians. Its

particularly compelling narrative and stylistic components,

and its notable contribution to the improvement of Peru’s

reputation in world cinema—in the context of a predominantly

unfavorable period—make The Milk of Sorrow a film worthy of

study with respect to the development of Peruvian cinema.

Having previously stated my intention to evidence the

11

latter’s endurance and significance through this thesis,

Llosa’s film forcefully supports this objective since it

implies an evolution of Peruvian cinema. By analyzing it

with respect to the history of Peruvian cinema and to the

concepts of cultural identity and modernity, I expect to

elucidate how The Milk of Sorrow qualifies as a Peruvian

masterwork and hence represents a major promise of the

latter’s progress.

This thesis does not aim to convey a thorough

retrospective of Peruvian cinema. To do so would imply a

much wider research given the filmmaking tradition’s complex

subdivisions and the vast amount of years it involves.

Peruvian film scholars like Ricardo Bedoya have already

finely undertaken this kind of project anyway8. To try to

cover all the components of Peruvian cinema would also

entail taking part in the lingering discussion of whether it

represents a valid national cinema the way critics like

Javier Protzel and filmmakers like Armando Robles Godoy have

8 Review Ricardo Bedoya’s academic bibliography, in particular his two-volume study on Peruvian cinema history: El cine silente en el Perú and El cine sonoro en el Perú.

12

done. Considering the relative nature of the concept of

national cinema— for which, according to Andrew Higson,

“there is not a single universally accepted discourse”9—,

this thesis is rather interested in showing how Peruvian

films, and particularly The Milk of Sorrow, have represented the

country’s cultural identity. I will use the writings of

Benedict Anderson and Stuart Hall on the concepts of nation

and identity as well as those of Javier Protzel on the

Peruvian social imaginaries in order to carry out the last

process.

Why is it relevant to study a cinema that has yet to

achieve more industrial stability, higher popularity and

stronger commercial and critical standing within and outside

its home country? It is so because in the end Peruvian

cinema has remarkably continued to develop in spite of its

faults, people’s general skepticism, insufficient

governmental support and Hollywood’s aggressive competition.

It also represents a distinctive cinema that has

9 Andrew Higson, “The Concept of National Cinema” in Film and Nationalism, ed. Alan Willliams (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 52.

13

surprisingly endured both internal and external challenges

thanks to the tenacity of its filmmakers and a fluctuating

yet ongoing interest of a non-negligible amount of Peruvian

moviegoers. It is a film tradition worth of rescuing from

oblivion since it embodies a culturally rich and diverse

society, “an eminently cinematographic country [that]

clamors for cinematic representations”10 according to

Armando Robles Godoy. The self-conscious way in which the

majority of Peruvian films embody their respective social

realities—by displaying cultural details such as

socioeconomic contexts, street language and urban/rural

settings—further underlines their nationality, making them

even more significant. In this sense, Peruvian cinema can be

seen as a kind of audiovisual witnessing of its country’s

modern and contemporary eras, those that have largely

defined its identity today. The Milk of Sorrow epitomizes this

latter aspect as it portrays the society that preceded the

internal conflict and foregrounds everlasting social issues 10 Armando Robles Godoy, “Si el cine peruano desaparece no pasa nada”: 105. Here Robles Godoy underlines Peru’s appeal as a setting and narrative material for the production of movies.

14

like poverty, racism and machismo that have previously been

addressed in other national films. For this reason, as well

as for its condition as the most critically acclaimed

Peruvian film, it is currently the most suitable film to

introduce Peruvian cinema and argue its importance as a form

of cultural representation. Additionally, given my position

as both Peruvian citizen and film student, I find this

thesis to be a remarkable opportunity to rediscover and

revalorize a lesser-known cinema that happens to be part of

my home country’s cultural legacy.

A Purpose for Peruvian Cinema

“Today, any country without its own cinema is an

invisible country. Had they lacked a written language, the

countries of yesterday would be as irrecoverable as those of

today will be in the future if they don’t start making

themselves visible on the (big) screen.”11 With these words

Colombian filmmaker Lisandro Duque conveys the importance of11 Lisandro Duque, “Retos para la supervivencia del cine latinoamericano” in Cine y nuevas tecnologías audiovisuales: Encuentro iberoamericano por los cien años del cine (Lima: Universidad de Lima Fondo Editorial, 1997), 51.

15

film in the preservation and advancement of a country’s own

culture. The current global film market validates his

warning about the extinction of cinema-less countries as

only a few prominent nations including the hegemonic United

States get to be represented and promoted in movie theatres

worldwide. This situation has led to an unbalanced reality

where, for instance, the European Union, which concentrates

9 per cent of the world’s population, “exports some 37.5 per

cent of the cultural goods that are in circulation” and

Latin America, which gathers 7 per cent, “exports a mere

0.8 per cent.”12 Peruvian authorities showed little or no

concern about this threat to national culture—since they did

not consider cinema as a key component of culture—until the

promulgation of the 1972 film law. Had Peruvian cinema

depended exclusively on government initiative it would

probably be non-existent or involving only a couple of

movies by today. Fortunately, spontaneous entrepreneurs

eager to depict their nation have been mostly responsible

12 Andrea Noble, Mexican National Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2005), 22.

16

for the development of Peruvian cinema ever since its

inception in 1908.

As of today, it represents a quite uneven yet

persistent filmmaking tradition, “an organic reality in

constant transformation, subject to headways and setbacks,

without any prognosis in sight.”13 Many Peruvian film

critics throughout the years have argued that the negative

issues surrounding Peruvian cinema surpass its

accomplishments, concluding that it only involves “a handful

of [valuable] movies that one can talk about” and an “embryo

of an industry.”14 While this viewpoint has been validated

by the repeated crises Peruvian cinema experiences with

respect to the quantity and/or quality of its productions,

it ignores the fact that Peruvian cinema has continued to

grow in the long term not only through its mainstream, Lima-

based division form but also through its alternative

ramifications like the (mostly Andean) regional and art

house cinemas. Thus, throughout the last decade more than 13 Oscar Contreras, “¿Qué es el cine peruano?”, 63.14 Federico de Cárdenas, “El cine peruano: la larga marcha” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, ed. Balmes Lozano Morillo (Lima: Cinemateca de Lima, 1989), 70.

17

twenty new filmmakers based in Lima made their first

commercial theatrical releases, half of which got to produce

a second film. Elder directors who started their careers

during the application of the 1972 film law also continued

to work, and filmmakers based in other regions of Peru

developed a new, fairly successful wave of alternative films

thanks to the increasing accessibility of video production.

These signs of a relatively healthy condition of Peruvian

cinema suggest that it has managed to find a raison d’être

that has not been spoiled by its irregular development.

What is this forceful raison d’être that has extended

the life of a cinema that continues to struggle for

industrial maturity and (steadier) artistic sophistication?

The answer certainly rests on those Peruvian moviegoers who

have continued to watch Peruvian cinema regardless of its

recurrent imperfections and relatively unexciting narrative

subjects (compared to those idealized ones from Hollywood).

Not unlike their approach to other (more successful) art

forms like music or literature, people’s motive to keep on

trying new Peruvian films is most likely their interest to

18

consume cultural items to which they can genuinely relate to

as Peruvians. Duque supports this hypothesis by elaborating

on the importance that artistic representations have for

people in general:

[W]hen the human being is represented in a screen, or in a photo […] [he] begins to be [someone] and stops tosimply exist. Man thus has a complex relationship with himself through his own represented image and may have a relationship no longer complex but confusing with himself and with his peers if the possibility for iconic representation is mutilated. Every human being has to consult his own presence permanently […] [T]o be reflected, which is something done in front of mirrors, [shares] the same [verb] with to reflect upon, which is something we achieve in front of art, including cinematographic art […]15

In the light of this thought, it can be forcefully argued

that Peruvian cinema has persevered as a national film

movement because of the nation’s desire and need for

representation. The rise of regional cinemas across

different provinces like the 1950’s Cusco School epitomizes

this need for cinematic representation as it suggests that

for certain social groups the mainstream cinema—which is not

limited to depictions of Lima’s reality—is not enough for

15 Lisandro Duque, “Retos para la supervivencia del cine latinoamericano”, 52-53

19

them to identify with. Peruvian film auteur Armando Robles

Godoy further emphasized the representational role of

Peruvian cinema by claiming that it “can still achieve a

goal that no other art has done which is to help us to get

to know Peru.”16 The fact that most films foreground

domestic locations, people, customs and dialects since they

were made exclusively for national viewers confirms that

Peruvian cinema is able to fulfill Robles Godoy’s suggested

role.

The unsteady growth and low international prominence of

Peruvian cinema encourage the perception that Peru is always

at the verge of audiovisual extinction. However, bearing in

mind Duque’s affirmation that only cinema-less countries are

the ones that disappear, Peru remains visible because its

cinema has managed to preserve a space within Peruvian

culture ever since the release of the first narrative film,

Negocio al agua, in 1913. Although the productions of the

silent era were considered to be little more than “isolated

16 Armando Robles Godoy in “La verdad del cine nacional” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 147.

20

attempts to open up a potential commercial cinema,”17

Peruvian cinema was never fully abandoned as a cultural

project, not even after a critical cessation of narrative

films took place during the 50s. As a result of this

resilience, the national films have prevented “a cultural

genocide” at the local movie theaters, “a depredation of

[the country’s] imaginaries, [and] a mutilation of its

[citizen’s] right to have a second look at themselves.”18

Even when film distributors and exhibitors in Peru (mainly

established by Hollywood studios) have tried throughout the

years to jeopardize the theatrical performance of several

Peruvian films—from the late 60s and 70s with Robles Godoy’s

auteurist movies to the current era with the first

commercially released experimental feature El espacio entre las

cosas (Raúl del Busto, 2013)19—the latter have not quit their17 Isaac León Frías, “Hacia una historia del cine peruano” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 20.18 Lisandro Duque, “Retos para la supervivencia del cine latinoamericano”, 53.19 See “El espacio entre las cosas: una nueva polémica en elcine nacional” (http://elcomercio.pe/luces/cine/espacio-entre-cosas-nueva-polemica-cine-nacional-noticia-1635033) for an account of the most recent incident involving a movietheatre abruptly cancelling the screenings of a Peruvian film with ambiguous arguments.

21

ongoing battle against the overpowering Hollywood within the

national market. By doing so, Peruvian films have fulfilled

the noble duty to promote their country’s idiosyncratic

cultural identity in the big screen throughout its extensive

history.

Peruvian Cinema in the Making

Ever since the invention of Thomas Edison’s Kinetograph

and the Lumière brother’s Cinematograph, the world has been

fascinated with the projection of motion pictures. Peruvians

were no exception to this global allurement as the film

apparatuses in question arrived in Lima soon after their

official releases in their respective home countries.

Eventually, as cinema became a popular means of

entertainment, certain developed nation-states realized it

had the potential to showcase and reinforce their own

cultures and ideologies both within and outside their

borders. For instance, Hollywood movies would remind

Americans about their traditions and values and at the same

time advertise the image of an ideal nation to foreign

22

audiences. In Latin America only some countries like Mexico

and Argentina decided to participate in the venture of

global film market in spite of their technological and

economic limitations, not necessarily to challenge the

influence of the northern powers but to “remind the world

that they [had] not been absent in the process of shaping

the course of Western civilization.”20 Peru eventually

became one of these nations where local moviegoers “long to

see national images transformed into spectacles for the

Vitascope or the cinematograph.”21 Consequently, a

relatively small array of silent film productions was made

for the local market between the 1900’s and the 1930s. From

short travelogues showing “regional landscapes from the

coast, the routes to the Andes and to the jungle […]

evidences of previously unappreciated locations”22 to

recordings of then-significant urban events like the

departure of people from church on Sunday or the presence of

20 Claudio Lomnitz quoted in Andrea Noble, Mexican National Cinema, 30.21 Ricardo Bedoya, El cine silente en el Perú (Lima: Universidad de Lima Fondo Editorial, 2009), 35.22 Idem, 46.

23

Peru’s president at a horse race. From the first narrative

short film Negocio al agua in 1913 to a propagandistic

documentary produced by a national newspaper in 1924 that

conveyed “the new and promising features that Peruvians

[had] and which the world ought to know.”23 During these

early years Peruvian cinema already faced the challenges

that would accompany it throughout its existence like

technological limitations and fluctuating popularity. The

entry of American-backed distributors and exhibitors in the

context of an economic aperture was probably the most

harmful circumstance as it entailed the weakening of

national film enterprises, the diminution and slowness of

production and thus “the first crisis of cinematic

development with an increasing difficulty to obtain funding

resources.”24

With the exception of the first (surprisingly

ambitious) regional films developed by independent artist

Antonio Wong Rengifo between 1934 and 1936, Peruvian cinema—

by this point exclusively based in Lima—did not offer any 23 Idem, 155.24 Idem, 253.

24

signs of progress until the foundation of Amauta Films in

1937, the first serious attempt to establish a national film

industry. Its commitment to do so was reflected in its

declaration of goals such as “to impose our language and

customs on screen […] to reveal our virgin landscape for the

world’s contemplation […] to promote productions not for

being national but for being good.”25 Its comedies and

melodramas depicting creole traditions within middle class

urban spaces turned out to be very successful as they

appealed to the biggest sector of Limean society. The

national critics, while disapproving about the accuracy with

which the films portrayed Peruvian reality, considered

Amauta Films “a triumph” since it “got the temperament of

our peoples right and make them move on the big screen.”26

When some of Amauta’s productions started to resemble those

made in Mexico, however, critics would demand readjustments,

arguing that “if we looked less to Mexico we would not err

so easily” and that “we need to find ourselves […] apprehend

25 Ricardo Bedoya, El cine sonoro en el Perú (Lima: Universidad de Lima Fondo Editorial, 2009), 34.26 Idem, 62.

25

our spirit.”27 Amauta Films never got to apply these

readjustments since it released its last production in 1940

due to economic complications and the shortage of imported

film celluloid.

The circumstances did not improve for (Lima-based)

Peruvian cinema throughout the 40s and less so during the

50s as only nine films were made, none of which reprised the

success of Amauta. Moreover, American-backed film

distributors and exhibitors took advantage of the production

flaws and modest appeal of Peruvian films to convince

audiences about their bad reputation, arguing that “we would

rather [screen] any mediocre Argentinian or Mexican film

because even such is superior than the one[s] of our

improvised director[s].”28 A strong antagonism between

Peruvian filmmakers and distributors/exhibitors was hence

established, the latter being considered “the worst enemy of

the national cinema […] for the simple reason that they are

not Peruvian […] with respect to their jobs.”29 This remains27 Idem, 68.28 Idem, 88.29 Armando Robles Godoy, “La verdad del cine nacional” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 138.

26

one of the biggest issues for Peruvian cinema until today as

movie theaters grant less screenings to Peruvian films

compared to the weekly Hollywood entries.

The Lima-based film industry hit rock-bottom during 50s

since its only production, La muerte llega al segundo show (José

Maria Roselló y Beltrán, 1958), was one of the poorest in

terms of quality and thus “inspired as many jokes and

sarcastic comments”30 as no other Peruvian film before. In

spite of this failure, the 50s also involved two noteworthy

events that contributed to the development of Peruvian

cinema. One was the rise of cine-clubs in Lima and Cusco

that encouraged Peruvian moviegoers to meet the world

outside of Hollywood and to improve their appreciation of

cinema as art. The second one was the foundation of a unique

regional movement inspired by the Cusco cine-club entitled

Cusco School. The films made by this regional movement were

highly significant in that they intended “to acknowledge a

reality unknown to cinema and to vindicate the Andean

native, a figure absent from the creole Peruvian film until

30 Ricardo Bedoya, El cine sonoro en el Perú, 142.

27

then.”31 Thus, films like Corpus del Cusco (Manuel Chambi, 1956)

were the first Peruvian productions to be recorded in

Quechua and to exclusively exploit Andean landscapes. While

they never enjoyed commercial or critical success within

Peru given the disdain from creole society towards Andean

otherness, some of these films became the first in the

history of Peruvian cinema to be shown at international art

film venues.

In 1962 the Peruvian government emitted a law that

exempted production companies from paying taxes for the

exhibition of their films made in Peru. Though it was not

truly beneficial for the development of a national industry

since it did not specify a Peruvian nationality for the

companies competing in the national market, the law actually

revitalized Peruvian cinema by encouraging several co-

productions with Mexico and Argentina. More significant

events however were the foundation of the first film

magazine Hablemos de cine, cradle of future film scholars like

Isaac León Frías and filmmakers like Francisco Lombardi, and

31 Idem, 135.

28

the emergence of Armando Robles Godoy as Peru’s first film

auteur. The latter represented an unprecedented

countercultural figure within Peruvian cinema who explored

marginal social experiences and embraced an experimental

narrative style. In his own words, “ I do not appeal to any

particular public; the gestation of a work of art of mine

responds to very concrete needs like sweating, loving,

enjoying, etc.”32 Eccentric as he was, he contributed the

first internationally acclaimed and awarded movies to

Peruvian cinema. Thus, En la selva no hay estrellas (No Stars in the

Jungle, 1966) became the first Peruvian submission for the

Academy Award’s Best Foreign Language Film category. His

following films La Muralla Verde (The Green Wall, 1970) and

Espejismo (Mirage, 1972) were granted the same distinction as

well as others including the Chicago International Film

Festival’s Golden Hugo award.

Robles Godoy also represents a central character in

Peruvian cinema for his active role in the promulgation of

the first genuinely constructive film law of 1972, the event32 Armando Robles Godoy, “La verdad del cine nacional” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 145.

29

that inaugurated the most successful period of Peruvian

cinema in terms of both popularity and critical recognition.

Predominantly defined by the nationalistic and anti-

imperialistic spirit of the military government that made it

possible, this law not only fixed the error of not requiring

a Peruvian nationality for the benefited production

companies but also entailed the application of tax

incentives for the latter and a system of obligatory

exhibition for their short and long features. In this way,

the law aimed to consolidate Peruvian cinema as a serious

industry: “film ought to reach the levels of production of

manufacturing […] with the capacity to satisfy the internal

market demand […] to become an activity for export destined

to advance the lifestyle and idiosyncrasy of Peruvians.”33

Major evidences of progress were the continuity of the

careers of veteran filmmakers like Robles Godoy and Luis

Figueroa and the rise and steady growth of new ones like

Francisco Lombardi and Federico García Hurtado. Though

Peruvian cinema became more democratic as its rural

33 Ricardo Bedoya, El cine sonoro en el Perú, 164.

30

subdivision expanded and acquired higher prominence, Lima

continued to be the main engine of production. Thus, over

fifteen urban films were made during the 70s and over

twenty-five during the 80s, the majority of which were no

longer the creole comedies or sentimental dramas typical of

previous years. Indeed, a great influx of crime thrillers,

war films and neorealist dramas entailed a makeover of

Peruvian cinema’s character. In this way, Peruvian movies

“stop being sheer mimicries of the banal and populist

commercial Mexican cinema in the eyes of their viewers”, the

best proof being “a potential of convocation that, in

certain occasions, could be compared with that of any

Hollywood blockbuster.”34 For instance, the action-packed La

Fuga del Chacal (Augusto Tamayo, 1987) managed to gather

980,000 viewers, becoming the second most viewed Peruvian

film in spite of being released in the midst of one of

Peru’s gravest economic recessions.

Given the elevation of production costs during the 80s,

the tax incentives ordered by the 1972 law ended up being

34 Idem, 186.

31

insufficient to cover the budget of most film projects.

Consequently, co-productions with other Latin American

nations, European funding programs or Spanish production

companies became the ideal financing model. Francisco

Lombardi, for instance, associated with different Spanish

producers throughout his career starting with La boca del lobo

(The Mouth of the Wolf, 1988). Co-productions also facilitated

the promotion of Peruvian films abroad as well as their

critical recognition at international film festivals.

Lombardi is also a notable example of this last feature as

he is the most rewarded Peruvian filmmaker, winning over 25

awards and having six of his films being submitted as the

Peruvian entry for the Academy Award’s Best Foreign Language

Film. Two other interesting cases that convey the success of

Peruvian collaborations with foreign film agents were the

association between director Luis Llosa and American

producer Roger Corman starting with Misión en los Andes (Hour of

the Assassin, 1987), and the production firm Grupo Chaski led

by Swiss producer Stefan Kaspar, responsible for the hit

32

neorealist films about street children Gregorio (1984) and

Juliana (1989).

Though not all Peruvian film scholars agree with this

conclusion, the 80s arguably represented Peruvian cinema’s

climactic years since they entailed “the consolidation of

the relationship between Peruvian viewers with the cinema

made in their country.”35 The establishment of neoliberalism

with the government of Alberto Fujimori in the 90s

unfortunately marked the end of this auspicious era as it

involved the elimination of the 1972 film law for being

considered protectionist. Though it was replaced by a new

film law in 1994 that created the National Council of

Peruvian Cinematography (CONACINE in Spanish) for the

organization of contests through which the best film

projects would be financially rewarded, the absence of a

system of obligatory exhibitions and the inconsistent supply

of funds—not to mention the overall meager portion of the

national treasury destined for cinema—proved that the law

entailed more limitations than incentives for the continuity

35 Idem, 211.

33

of Peruvian cinema. Thus, while veteran filmmakers like

Lombardi have continued to work and over twenty new

filmmakers have emerged since 1994, “nothing guarantees that

the directors will maintain their careers making new movies”

given “the deficient fulfillment of the [new] film law.”36

Only a handful of emerging directors have been able to

release a sophomore work and the commercial and critical

successes have become sporadic and scarce. For this reason

Ricardo Bedoya concludes that the revocation of the 1972

film “cancelled an attempt, pushed by the government, to

solidify a Peruvian film industry.”37

In the midst of such a hopeless scenario—and leaving

aside the sudden revival of commercial cinema in 2013 given

its status as a fairly recent phenomenon—few unexpected

international critical achievements from the late 2000s

would vindicate the value of Peruvian cinema. The first one

was Josué Méndez’ Días de Santiago (Days of Santiago, 2005), winner

of 12 awards including the Grand Prix at Fribourg

International Film Festival. The second one was Claudia 36 Idem, 23337 Idem, 213.

34

Llosa’s Madeinusa (2006), winner of 10 awards including the

FIPRESCI prize at Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Méndez’ second film Dioses (Gods, 2008) was less successful

in quantity of recognitions than its predecessor but still

relevant. It nevertheless became dwarfed by the arrival of

the fourth and most important of all: The Milk of Sorrow.

Peruvian Cinema’s Identity

Before moving on to examine Llosa’s exceptional film in

order to consider the extent to which it embodies the

evolution of Peruvian cinema, I would like to elaborate on

the complex yet compelling cultural identity it has advanced

throughout the years, one that distinguishes it from other

cinemas of the Latin American region and the world.

In the thorough, highly regarded examination of the

concept of nation that is Imagined Communities, author

Benedict Anderson identifies print-language as the main

source of a sense of community among the members of a

nation-state. In his own words, “the most important thing

about language is its capacity for generating imagined

35

communities, building in effect particular solidarities.”38

Bearing in mind his example of the development of

Mozambique’s nationhood through the adoption of colonial-

inherited Portuguese, it is logical to assume that Peru

developed its own sense of community through Spanish.

However, this was certainly not the case since Peru plotted

independence from its motherland Spain partly because of

“fear of lower-class political mobilizations: to wit, Indian

or Negro-slave uprisings.”39 Furthermore, a significant

portion of those racial “minorities” continues to use pre-

colonialist languages like Quechua. Peruvian government’s

longstanding centralization of political and economic power

in Lima and its lack of concern for the indigenous cultures

from the highland and rainforest regions prove that a common

language failed to establish a genuine sense of nationhood.

In the 20th century, however, “advances in

communications technology” have made it possible to “conjure

up the imagined community to illiterates and populations

38 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 133. 39 Idem, 48.

36

with different mother-tongues.”40 Among those technologies,

film has decidedly been the most influential one. Thus,

“rather than simply being related to the nation,” national

films have been “an essential part of a process of defining

nations”41, the main tool to maintain and reinforce

nationhood. In Peru, as already mentioned, the national film

movement has survived while trying to advance a distinctive

cultural identity. Has it been more successful than print

Spanish in defining the Peruvian nation? Although it has

tried its best, the answer is mostly negative considering

that Peruvian films hardly go beyond the second week of

theatrical exhibition due to their low popularity among

viewers. More significantly, the division of Peruvian cinema

into rural and urban subdivisions reflects a cultural

dichotomy that is “evidently not superficial” since “Peru is

a culturally divided country, with an identity in constant

search.”42 Thus, it is arguable that Peruvian cinema’s 40 Idem, 135. 41 Alan Williams, “Introduction” in Film and Nationalism, ed. Alan Williams (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002), 4. 42 Francisco Lombardi, “Cine peruano: posibilidades y perspectivas” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 64.

37

failure to consolidate nationhood is partly due to the

fragmented nature of Peruvian cultural identity.

Here it is pertinent to take a step back and focus on

the meaning of cultural identity. According to Stuart Hall,

it represents “the collective or true self hiding inside the

many other, more superficial or artificially imposed

‘selves’ which a people with a shared history and ancestry

hold in common.”43 Said differently, it is not a forced bond

between countrymen but a collage of attributes, practices

and beliefs that everybody can genuinely relate to. In

nation-states like Germany that “emerged out of a cultural

nationalistic aspiration to define the specificity and

destiny of a volk [people],“44 a population can effortlessly

agree on a single, solid cultural identity. This cannot

apply to countries like France where “the cost of universal

citizenship is […] cultural assimilation” since “even before

the Revolution, the nation has been understood politically,

43 Stuart Hall, “Introduction: Who Needs Identity?” in Questions of Cultural Identity, ed. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (London: Sage Publications, 1996), 3-4. 44 James Donald, “The Citizen and the Man About Town” in Questions of Cultural Identity, 173.

38

in relation to the institutional and territorial frame of

state.”45 The case of Peru evidently falls into the second

group due to its former status as a colony with a

predominantly indigenous population. Hence, it is

conceivable that its present-day citizens cannot agree on an

all-encompassing cultural identity and that its cinema

conveys such a social disparity. This conclusion can also be

reached if we considered Peru as a “late-modern” society

that remains together “not because [it is] unified but

because [its] different elements and identities can […] be

articulated together.”46 Bearing in mind the huge waves of

internal migration to Lima throughout the last half of the

20th century and their considerable impact in Peruvian

reality, the second perception of Peruvian society is

perhaps more appropriate to explain the lack of a unique

cultural discourse today. We will later see how The Milk of

Sorrow significantly embodies this concept of a postmodern

urban culture where conflicting identities start the 45 Idem.46 Stuart Hall, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, ed. Stuart Hall, David Hell, Don Hubert and Kenneth Thompson (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), 600.

39

creation of new complex one out of their (unwanted)

coexistence.

Going back to the original cultural dichotomy, Peruvian

cinema has mirrored this by developing two major

ramifications that are not necessarily antagonistic but very

different in terms of narrative subjects, ideologies and

aesthetic qualities. Thus, while the rural cinema—led by the

foundation of the School of Cusco in the late 50s—explores

“the problem of the [Peruvian] Indian […] the problem of the

land (now of agriculture and the peasant)”47 in order to

vindicate the marginalized Andean orb, its urban counterpart

foregrounds the sceneries and lifestyle of the (capital)

city not in order to exalt it but only because it “is the

ambit where professional filmmakers are immersed, the one

they know firsthand and [thus] the one from which they can

obtain viable stories.”48 These differences can be

appreciated by comparing two films from 1977 that epitomize

each cinematic movement: Muerte al amanecer by Lima-based

47 José Carlos Huayhuaca, “Para hacer cine, ir al cine” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 77.48 Idem, 82.

40

Francisco Lombardi and Kuntur wachana by Cusco-born Federico

García Hurtado. While the former narrates the last day of a

death-sentenced child molester from Lima in the vein of a

political film, the latter conveys a neorealist

dramatization of the formation of a peasant cooperative from

Cusco that fought for their rights. Although both films

offer critical perspectives on Peruvian (in)justice based on

real-life stories, their narrative moods and final purposes—

not unlike their subjects and settings—vary significantly.

Thus, whereas Lombardi’s film limits its criticism to a

somewhat satirical portrayal of Peru’s bureaucratic judicial

system, García Hurtado’s film stresses its commitment with

marginalized people by featuring an excerpt of a political

speech from an activist leader along with real footage of

peasant protests in Cusco at the end.

This bifurcation of Peruvian cinema has continued

throughout the 21st century as proven by the development of

fairly popular alternative regional film circuits outside of

Lima. This situation encourages the perception that Peru

still “has not ceased to be a nation under construction” and

41

thus “has not consolidated itself as a Peruvian ‘imagined

community’ that experiences homogeneity like any other

integrated nation.”49 This represents a valid viewpoint that

can be supported by other aspects of Peruvian reality

including the ongoing disagreements between the central

government and regional authorities or activists. However,

it is possible to formulate an alternative, more optimistic

interpretation of the national culture by considering Peru’s

status as a modern nation-state. Thus, according to Stuart

Hall, most modern nations “consist of disparate cultures

which were only unified by a lengthy process of violent

conquest” and they “are always composed of different social

classes, and gender and ethnic groups.”50 All in all, they

behave like “cultural hybrids” that “do not (have to)

subsume all other forms of difference into themselves.”51 In

the light of these thoughts, Peruvian culture can be

identified not as fragmented but as plural. In other words,

49 Javier Protzel, Imaginarios sociales e imaginarios cinematográficos, 220.50 Stuart Hall, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, 616-617.51 Idem, 617-618.

42

the opposition between urban and rural cinemas can be

interpreted as a natural symptom of a culturally diverse

country; if Peruvian culture “presents itself not as a unity

but as a multiplicity”, then the urban and rural cinemas

“are only two expressions of this multiplicity.”52 The films

of Lombardi and García Hurtado validate this perspective as

they both depict how the errors and excesses of Peruvian

justice affect people from different parts of the country.

That both films amassed equally substantial amounts of

viewers also conveys that urban and rural films can be

potentially appealing for the same Peruvian people.

In this sense, the absence of a unique Peruvian

cultural discourse does not entail a real handicap for

Peruvian cinema, or at least no more than other aspects like

insufficient support from government. On the contrary, the

fact that it can portray Peru’s distinctive social groups

without implying an artificial image of cultural uniformity

exalts Peruvian cinema’s role as an agent of cultural

representation. Even Javier Protzel, who rejects the 52 Balmes Lozano Morillo, “Batallas del cine peruano” in El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 179.

43

consideration of Peruvian cinema as a legitimate national

cinema, argues that it can be “truly national” in the sense

that it is “able to verisimilarly capture and depict the

emotion of the social [national] link” and by doing so

“contributing to the work of social construction of

reality.”53 The critical portrayal of Peruvian justice

shared by the aforementioned urban and rural films—and by

many others throughout the history of Peruvian cinema—for

instance identifies withstanding of incompetent, at times

oppressive authorities as a prominent social link between

Peruvians. Interestingly enough, this pessimistic perception

of the nation’s fate can also be recognized in other forms

of cultural representation including the national anthem,

the first stanza of which indicates that “largo tiempo el

peruano oprimido, la ominosa cadena arrastró” (“for a long

time the oppressed Peruvian dragged the ominous chain”).

Considering that “nationalness has about it an aura of

fatality,”54 Peruvian cinema’s foregrounding of negative

53 Javier Protzel, Imaginarios sociales e imaginarios cinematográficos, 278.54 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 145.

44

aspects of Peruvian social reality that affect all or most

Peruvians is a way through which nationhood can be promoted

among them, especially in the absence of a unique cultural

identity.

For Protzel the latter actually represents one of the

five main themes in which he classifies Peruvian films in

his book Imaginarios sociales e imaginarios cinematográficos (Social

Imaginaries and Cinematographic Imaginaries). While he considers

that not enough movies have depicted the social convulsions

caused by authoritarian regimes and internal violence that

have existed throughout Peru’s history, Protzel acknowledges

that most Peruvian films “bear the footprints of their

(historical) period of production”55 as their stories

predominantly intend to be realistic. According to him, the

films that deal directly with the internal conflict between

the government and the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso

(Shining Path) are the ones that most effectively portray

how “the propitiators of violence in Peru impregnate [with

55 Javier Protzel, Imaginarios sociales e imaginarios cinematográficos, 295.

45

aggression] the emotional development of the individual.”56

The production of over ten films featuring the terrorism as

a central or background narrative, from La boca del lobo (The

Mouth of the Wolf, Francisco Lombardi, 1988) to Viaje a Tombuctú

(Trip to Timbuktu, Rossana Díaz Costa, 2013) and The Milk of Sorrow,

evidence the prominence of this particular topic within

Peruvian cinema.

Aside from terrorism and social oppression, Protzel

identifies four other major themes present in Peruvian

cinema: the indigenous imaginary, the imaginary of social

classes, (anti)heroism, and sentimentalism. Most films

obviously display an overlap of two or more of these themes

including the one described previously. What connects all of

them is that they are deeply rooted in Peruvian culture,

whether they depict Lima’s bourgeoisie or the poor peasantry

of an Andean region. While this attribute does not guarantee

affinity with the average escapist Peruvian moviegoer, “the

most sociologically realist” Peruvian films tend to be “the

most internationally awarded.”57 This is certainly the case 56 Idem, 296.57 Idem,278.

46

of The Milk of Sorrow, a film that also combines narrative

elements from each major theme aforementioned and which

challenges the longstanding rural-urban cultural dichotomy

by introducing the convergence of Andean and western

identities in 21st century Lima.

II. THE MILK OF SORROW: The Peruvian Golden Film

Claudia Llosa’s La teta asustada/ The Milk of Sorrow was

released nationwide on March 12, 2009—that is fifteen years

after the promulgation of the second film law that started

the more recent period of Peruvian cinema. A Peruvian-

Spanish co-production, the art-house film is the second long

feature made by the Lima native director. Not unlike most

Peruvian films from the contemporary era, The Milk of Sorrow did

47

not originally inspire any expectations among Peruvian

moviegoers. Many were actually skeptical about its success

given the controversy caused by Llosa’s first movie,

Madeinusa (2005). Also a Peruvian-Spanish co-production and

her first collaboration with actress Magaly Solier, this

other movie endured harsh remarks within Peru and inspired

“defenders and detractors in a confrontational tone rarely

seen revolving a movie”58 for its fantastic and thought-

provoking depiction of Andean customs and values. Certain

audiences, particularly those from Andean descent,

considered the film an inappropriate distortion of reality,

its characters being “aliens to the men and women that sit

down in the armchairs of [Peruvian] movie theatres.”59 The

film nonetheless achieved critical acclaim from Peruvian and

foreign film critics and was screened and awarded at

different venues worldwide like the Rotterdam International

Film Festival. This significant appraisal, unusual for a

58 Rocío Silva Santisteban, “Madeinusa y la ciudad medíatica”, Revista Ideele, December 2006, 100.59 Idem, 101.

48

Peruvian film, enabled Llosa to work on her sophomore

project sooner than most Peruvian filmmakers.

Mainly sponsored by the Spanish film-funding program

Ibermedia, the private Spanish production company Wanda

Vision, and the Peruvian National Commission of

Cinematography (CONACINE), The Milk of Sorrow received its world

premier on February 2009 at the 59th Berlin International

Film Festival. At this venue Llosa’s film became the most

important Peruvian film of all time after receiving the

International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) award

and the Golden Bear, the festival’s award for best movie.

From then on the movie gained unprecedented momentum for a

Peruvian film abroad. Thus, it became awarded in other film

festivals like the Guadalajara International Film Festival

and the Lima Film Festival. A year later it also got to be

nominated by three national film academies including the

American one, hence becoming the first Peruvian film after

fifteen submission to receive an Oscar nomination for Best

Foreign Language Film. This event and the overall

international appraisal transformed the indifference of

49

Peruvian moviegoers into various degrees of anticipation and

support for Llosa’s film. This was evidenced by the record

viewership obtained by the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony in

Peru.60 In spite of losing this nomination, The Milk of Sorrow

has maintained its title of most critically acclaimed

Peruvian film until today given the twelve prizes it

collected throughout 2009.

Though this overwhelming critical recognition did not

entail a commercial response of equal proportions since the

nationwide theatrical release gathered less than 250,000

viewers, the film’s success was significant enough to boost

the careers of its main actress and filmmaker to unexpected

levels for a Peruvian artist. Thus, Magaly Solier is in the

road to become a prominent figure in international cinema as

she has been awarded at different festivals and offered

leading and supporting roles in a handful of foreign movies

like the Spanish-American Western Blackthorn (Mateo Gil,

60 See “El rating de los Oscar en el Perú fue tres veces mayor que en los años anteriores” (http://elcomercio.pe/espectaculos/424353/noticia-rating-oscar-peru-fue-mas-tres-veces-mayor-que-anos-anteriores) fora detailed report about the 2010 Oscars ratings in Peru.

50

2011) and the Italian-Chilean dramedy Alfonsina y el mar (K.

Kosoof, 2013). At the same time, Claudia Llosa became an

unusually successful Peruvian director for making a film

that surpassed the critical acclaim not only of her debut

but also of other praised works from more experienced

filmmakers like Francisco Lombardi or Luis Llosa, her

father. This achievement acquires more significance in the

light of Ricardo Bedoya’s notion that under the second film

law “nothing guarantees that [Peruvian] filmmakers can

maintain their careers by making new movies.”61 The Milk of

Sorrow has allowed Llosa to continue her exceptional career,

embarking on new, more ambitious projects like her Teddy

award-winning short feature Loxoro (2013) and her first

English-spoken long film Aloft (2014) featuring Academy

Award-winner Jennifer Connelly.

While it did not inspire a radical change of attitude

from Peruvian audiences towards their home country’s cinema—

the best evidence being its absence from the list of top

grossing movies at the Peruvian box office of 2009—, The Milk

61 Ricardo Bedoya, El cine sonoro en el Perú, 233.

51

of Sorrow did renew hope about the future of Peruvian cinema

among national film critics, viewers and members of the

Lima-based film industry. Thus, film critic and scholar

Emilio Bustamante considers that the film’s polemics “can

serve as a stimulus so that maybe in the future alternative

views can be cinematically manifested with talent, rigor and

coherence.“62 Filmmaker and programmer of Lima Independiente

Film Festival Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez provides a more

enthusiastic assessment, arguing that it should be a matter

of celebration that, given the film’s unparalleled

international reception, “more than one door will be opened

for those who know how to prepare a responsible film

project.”63 Ricardo Bedoya provides the ultimate

valorization by writing after The Milk of Sorrow’s loss at the

Oscars that it remains a landmark film notwithstanding since

62 Emilio Bustamante, “La teta asustada”, Páginas del diario de Satán (blog), February 27, 2009, http://paginasdeldiariodesatan.blogspot.com/2009/02/la-teta-asustada-por-emilio-bustamante.html 63 Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, “Casi un grito de miedo: La teta asustada de Claudia Llosa”, Páginas del diario de Satán (blog),February 22, 2009, http://paginasdeldiariodesatan.blogspot.com/2009/02/casi-un-grito-de-miedo-la-teta-asustada.html

52

it proved “it is possible [for Peruvian cinema] to compete

in the mayor leagues through a very serious and professional

work” and that “[the possibility] that other Peruvian films

prevail in the future could be [its] biggest achievement.”64

The subsequent release of award-winning titles like Javier

Fuentes-León’s Undertow or Octubre (October, Diego and Daniel

Vega, 2010), the opening of more film festivals in the

country and the overall growing interest on

art-house/alternative films can be considered as

accomplishments partially influenced by The Milk of Sorrow. If

anything Llosa’s film proved that, regardless of the scarce

financial and legal support from government and Hollywood’s

crushing machinery, Peruvian cinema is still capable of

measuring up with and winning over other more consolidated

national cinemas.

According to its tagline, The Milk of Sorrow is “a journey

from fear to freedom.” This certainly captures the essence

of the story of Fausta (Magaly Solier), a young woman who 64 Ricardo Bedoya, “Después del Oscar”, Páginas del diario de Satán (blog), March 9, 2010, http://paginasdeldiariodesatan.blogspot.com/2010/03/despues-del-oscar.html

53

seems incapable of facing the world without her mother

Perpetua (Bárbara Lazón). The reason behind this dependency

is a deeply unsettling one: while still inside Perpetua’s

womb, Fausta experienced her mother’s torturous rape, an

example of the many atrocities that took place during Peru’s

internal conflict between the 80’s and 90’s. As a result of

this shocking event and the nurturing of her fear through

Perpetua’s presumably spoiled breast milk—or what Andean

people refer as ‘”the frightened tit” (“la teta asustada”)

syndrome—, Fausta becomes as traumatized as her mother. In

order to protect herself from being raped, Fausta not only

avoids leaving her uncle Lúcido’s (Marino Ballón) house and

talking to strange men but also carries a potato inside her

vagina, following the logic that “only disgust scares the

disgusting”.

The sudden death of her mother forces Fausta to break

her psychological cocoon and venture to work as a maid in

order to afford a proper burial for Perpetua’s corpse back

in her Andean birthplace. By dealing with both the passive-

aggressive personality of her boss Aida (Susi Sánchez) and

54

the subtle harassment of her cousin-in-law Amadeo (Daniel

Nuñez), the protagonist progressively begins to realize that

living in constant fear, much like keeping a potato inside

her vagina, is not sustainable for her development as a

woman. Her increasing interest in the fatherly gardener Noé

(Efraín Solís) further challenges her inherited prejudices,

phobias and indifference to pleasure. Only after her

emotional seclusion and the growing potato within her vagina

become more unbearable than the potential threats from the

outside world, Fausta decides to set herself free from the

pain of her past. Against all odds, she eventually becomes

healed and ready to embrace the joy of life, proving that a

former victim of terror can leave it behind in order to

bloom like a potato flower as suggested by the film’s last

powerful shot.

In spite of its status as a Spanish-Peruvian co-

production, The Milk of Sorrow has been categorized as a

Peruvian feature in every film competition in which it has

participated. Aside from the nationality of its director,

this consideration most likely responds to the fact that the

55

film explicitly exhibits a Peruvian identity. Indeed, its

plot and backstory, its foregrounding of both Spanish and

Quechua languages, its on-location shooting and its almost

entirely indigenous cast headed by Magaly Solier evidence

Claudia Llosa’s (and her Spanish producers’) intention to

deliver an audiovisual experience deeply rooted in Peruvian

culture. The subtle layer of magic realism embedded in the

plot also (paradoxically) supports the authenticity of the

film’s portrayal of Peruvian reality as it evokes the

mysticism that has always been associated to Andean culture.

Moreover, while not based on a true story, the life of

Fausta does signify a compelling testimony of the country’s

contemporary history as it was inspired by Harvard

University professor Kimberly Theidon’s book Entre Prójimos, a

research project that compiled stories from real victims of

the internal conflict including women who claimed to suffer

from “the frightened tit”/”the milk of sorrow.” Thus, in

words of Theidon, the syndrome “is omnipresent in the

discourses of the women who lived during those years [of the

56

internal conflict].”65 Theidon’s praise for the film’s

portrayal of this social issue—“one of the most gratifying

things” in her own words since “a movie will communicate

[the issue] to many more [people] thank an academic book” —

further suggests that the film delivers a genuine

representation of Peruvian reality.

Though its plot does not involve revisiting either the

circumstances or the actual process through which women like

Perpetua were tortured during the internal conflict, The Milk

of Sorrow can be considered as a movie about Peru’s internal

conflict since it explores the degree to which this

historical episode has affected the lives of its survivors,

particularly women. In this sense, Llosa’s film represents

the continuity of a prominent tradition—almost a genre—in

contemporary Peruvian cinematography to portray tragic

stories related to the infamous conflict, Francisco

Lombardi’s The Mouth of the Wolf being the first movie to do so.

This association to the realistic Peruvian war genre further65 Mildred Largaespada, “La teta asustada: la historia detrás de la película”, Periodismo Humano, October 25, 2010, http://periodismohumano.com/culturas/la-teta-asustada-la-historia-detras-de-la-pelicula.html

57

validates the film’s representation of Peruvian culture as

well as its status as a Peruvian film.

Aside from the detrimental effect of the internal

conflict on women, The Milk of Sorrow foregrounds other major

social issues or aspects representative of Peruvian reality

like male chauvinism and the Andean folklore. Though these

other subjects may not be depicted with the same rigorously

realistic approach as with the internal conflict aftermath,

their inclusion in the plot certainly reinforces the film’s

Peruvian cultural specificity. Claudia Llosa’s use of a

particular set of techniques that compose her reflective

film style significantly enhances the portrayal of the

narrative issues in question as it invites a viewing

experience that goes beyond the image itself. In other

words, a viewing experience that is not complete without the

acknowledgement of the film’s cultural context.

Female Victimhood

As aforementioned, the film foregrounds the subject of

the internal conflict through its portrayal of female

58

victimhood, primarily embodied by Fausta and her mother. By

opening the film with Perpetua’s uncanny song monologue

about her disturbing rape during the internal conflict,

Claudia Llosa clearly states the prime weight of this social

theme in the film. Her decision to play Perpetua’s voice

track alongside a black screen for the first minute and a

half creates a particularly powerful introduction to the

film’s portrayal of female victims as it directs the

attention of viewers to her words and externalizes the

appalling state of her experience. Perpetua’s use of a

lullaby-like tone to convey her Quechua-spoken rape

testimony also contributes to the power of this sequence not

only for creating a paradoxical environment of enjoyment and

lament but also for discouraging the traditional

romanticized approach to Andean culture. Once the black

screen is gone, the sight of Perpetua’s face lying against a

corroded bed frame also consistently conveys the inherent

tragedy of her experience. The details of her testimony

convey a high degree of brutality from her assailants; thus,

she claims that she was raped while being pregnant with

59

Fausta and forced to swallow the mutilated penis of her

husband Josefo. That Perpetua never specifies if the men who

raped her were members of the national army or terrorists is

meaningful since it reflects the true fact that none of the

sides involved in the conflict were free of guilt from

committing crimes against human rights. Although Perpetua

dies quickly after she finishes narrating her poignant

testimony, her presence and trauma transcend death—and thus

live up to her name—as her corpse lies around the house

until the end of the film and Fausta continues to suffer on

her behalf due to the “milk of sorrow” disease.

The rendition of Perpetua’s miserable fate represents

the film’s most explicit and longest reference to Peru’s

internal conflict. Perpetua’s difficult struggle with the

pain left by the experience of being tortured and raped

while pregnant forcefully embodies the testimonies of Andean

female victims like those included in Kimberly Theidon’s

research on the violence of the internal conflict. Thus, her

agony reflects that of the women who “suffered not so much

from the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder but from

60

the symptoms of history […] the memories that become

solidified in [their] bodies, transforming them into

historical sites.”66 Perpetua’s specific case alludes to a

small section in the book about “the frightened tit”/”the

milk of sorrow” syndrome that defines it as an

“intergenerational transmission of toxic memories in a

literal sense […] in the uterus or through [maternal] blood

or milk” and which acknowledges the existence of children

born from traumatized mothers, all of which “have physical

and/or mental problems.”67 Though Fausta initially appears

to be a normal woman capable of soothing and taking care of

her mother, she eventually proves to represent the

aforementioned children once Perpetua dies.

Her vulnerability caused by “the milk of sorrow”

becomes evident when she bleeds from her nose and faints

immediately after her mother dies. This sense of deep

fragility and depression remains constant throughout the

film as Fausta displays a quiet, submissive and overall 66 Kimberly Theidon, Entre prójimos: el conflicto armado interno y la política de la reconciliación en el Perú, (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2004), 70-71. 67 Idem, 72.

61

fearful personality that encourages others to make decisions

for or take advantage of her. The scene at the hospital room

is an early example of this situation as it shows that

Fausta cannot get involved in the patriarchal-toned

conversation between the doctor and her uncle Lúcido even

when the subject they discuss is her own sexual health. The

composition of the scene’s final shot further stresses

Fausta’s passivity by showing a close-up of her face

featuring a depressed mood behind the curtain that separates

her from the doctor’s desk where the two men are talking.

Even when the latter are shown in shallow focus and in a

smaller size with respect to Fausta, the scene suggests that

they exert authority over Fausta since their conversation

covers the scene’s entire soundtrack. The following sequence

showing her awkwardly following Lúcido throughout the

hallways of the hospital and later failing to convince him

that her use of a potato for sexual protection is legitimate

further evidences Fausta’s powerlessness against patriarchy.

This last situation suggests that by this point of the film

62

everyday machismo is more to blame for Fausta’s

submissiveness than her inherited “milk of sorrow.”

From this moment onwards, Fausta partially adopts her

mother’s helpless behavior as she starts to rest alongside

Perpetua’s dead body and sing about her irreconcilable

issues with the real (patriarchal) world and her inner pain.

By singing that she carries the potato in her vagina “as a

shield of war” against potential rapists, Fausta implies

that women who were once victims of sexual violence are more

likely to assume a defensive position than an assertive one.

This idea is reaffirmed with every other scene in which

Fausta tries to cope with fear and hurt. Thus, after

becoming shocked for seeing her reflection in a portrait of

a soldier at Aida’s house and during the process of cutting

down the roots of her potato, she tries to calm down by

singing “lets sing, lets sing… lets sing beautiful things to

hide our fear away.” Similarly, at a different instance

Fausta sings about herself as a “lost dove” whose soul has

gotten lost, encouraging herself to look for it even “when

your mother gave birth to you with fear” in order to “stop

63

walking crying” and “stop walking suffering.” Such self-

reflexive lyrics further underline Fausta’s vulnerability,

suggesting that she needs to hear a soothing, melodic

(female) voice—not unlike her mother—in order to go on with

life. These relatively cathartic songs epitomize those sung

by actual female victims as reported by Kimberly Theidon in

her research, some of which were on the verge of madness

like “a poor lady who sang songs of the souls day and night

[who] claimed her head burned inside.”68 Fausta’s lack of

communication with other characters including women is also

a noteworthy attribute of weakness that evidences, according

to Theidon, that the idea of being raped “is capable of

producing muteness” since women “have few motives to talk

about a stigmatizing and embarrassing experience.”69 Hence

it is not surprising that she only talks about her fears

with herself through song.

Her awkward, somewhat problematic interactions with

male characters other than her uncle Lúcido consolidate the

depiction of the theme of female victimhood. The few 68 Idem, 82.69 Idem, 109.

64

instances when strange, seemingly innocuous men walk in

Fausta’s direction evidence her extreme degree of

susceptibility as she either becomes paralyzed or recedes

nervously. The gardener Noé’s first attempts to communicate

with Fausta emphasize her strong aversion and mistrust

towards men since she remains scared about him even when Noé

approaches her kindly and speaking in Quechua, her mother

tongue. As she becomes better acquainted with him, however,

Fausta starts to evidence some emotional progress.

Eventually Noé takes a chance to challenge the continuity of

Fausta’s condition as a victim by questioning her reluctance

to walk alone in the street and arguing that she can decide

not to live in fear since “only death is obligatory.”

Through her forceful response—“And when they kill you and

rape you? That is not obligatory!”—Fausta proves that she is

capable of removing from her passivity in order to defy the

male discourse as she mentions legitimate reasons to live

under constant fear. Her failure to retain this attitude

after ending her discussion with Noé however shows that by

this point of the film her predisposition to vulnerability

65

is still stronger. Noé’s comparison of Fausta with the

unusually fertile potato flower is hence admissible,

especially in the context of an equally arid and

inhospitable Lima.

Female Empowerment

Fausta ultimately gathers enough strength and

motivation to overcome the trauma left by “the milk of

sorrow” and become a restored, liberated woman. In this way,

female empowerment eventually replaces female victimhood as

the film’s prominent theme. Though it receives less than

half the screen time of female victimhood, the portrayal of

female empowerment is equally significant since it suggests

that formerly abused women like the victims from the

internal conflict Fausta represents have the potential to

reach inner peace and reject a submissive attitude.

Fausta experiences this empowerment after being subject

to Aida’s worst offense possible: being abandoned in an

unknown street at night on her own and without getting the

pearls she deserved for inspiring Aida by singing the siren

66

song. From this misdeed Fausta most likely realizes she

cannot continue to remain subservient to women or men since

the former can be as malicious as the latter. Fausta’s

reaction materializes only after her uncle Lúcido

unexpectedly fakes an attempt to choke her while she is

asleep in order to prove that “you want to live but don’t

dare to do so.” With this literal wake-up call he proves to

her that it is pointless to remain afraid of the outside

world when even close relatives have the potential to be

aggressors. Bearing this in mind, Fausta runs in the middle

of the night towards the house of her last genuine

aggressor, Aida. In the process, she almost unconsciously

overcomes past fears like walking on the streets by herself

and facing the portrait of the armed soldier at Aida’s room.

Her retrieval of the pearls that she was meant to earn

fairly from Aida and the tight fist with which she holds

them even after fainting evidence the remarkable level of

assertiveness that Fausta achieves in the end.

Her willingness to have the potato inside her vagina

removed represents the ultimate and most symbolic

67

manifestation of female empowerment in the film. By holding

Noé and crying to him in Quechua to have the potato removed,

Fausta proves that she is desperate to become free from

self-inflicted suffering and to fully embrace her

femininity. That she never lets go of the pearls from her

hand even during her surgery at the hospital further

emphasizes her determination to be a new Fausta, especially

since the pearls are meant to pay for the burial of her

mother and thus that of her disturbing past. The film later

shows Fausta carrying her mother’s corpse to the seashore to

contemplate the sea with her. A cut to a black screen at the

end of the scene suggests she decides to bury Perpetua in

the sea instead of her Andean hometown. Such a sudden

decision suggests that Fausta has reached a high level of

maturity since it reflects she is ready to let go of the

presence of her mother and face life on her own. The

satisfaction she experiences from contemplating the sea

implies that she is also now more identified and at peace

with the environment of her adoptive home. This association

with the sea also suggests that Fausta has acquired a state

68

of purity, free from ascribed prejudices and fears. The

film’s ending scene crowns Fausta’s evolution as she

receives a potato flower from Noé. Aside from suggesting a

possible relationship between the two characters, the potato

flower is remarkable in that it symbolizes Fausta’s

emancipation not just for being a flower but also for

emerging from the same tuber that once implied suffering and

powerlessness for Fausta. In other words, it emphasizes the

exceptional quality of Fausta’s evolution from vulnerability

to empowerment. The potato flower hence becomes an ideal

representation of the splendor of assertive femininity that

Fausta gets to embrace in the end.

Leaving Fausta’s storyline aside, female empowerment is

also embodied by the secondary female characters of Máxima

(María del Pilar Guerrero) and Aida. Although they are far

from being righteous models of empowerment as Fausta becomes

by the end of the film, both characters do convey legitimate

versions of female control earlier in the film. Máxima does

this at the film’s opening by whining about the supposedly

short length of her wedding dress and by demanding a longer

69

one to her father Lúcido. The dress’ actually excessive

length suggests that Máxima’s ambitions and overall

character go beyond those of the average woman in a

patriarchal society. Her incessant complains in reply to her

father’s denials to make the dress longer emphasize her

power to challenge male authority. While her petulance,

unproductiveness, kitsch taste and eagerness to get married

suggest that Máxima conforms to retrograde stereotypes of

women, she proves she is not fully compatible with a passive

female figure since she actually expresses a rather

aggressive attitude most of time, for instance imposing her

voice over those of others including her parents and her shy

groom. Such a strongly assertive behavior (and her partner’s

inability to calm her down) suggests that Máxima will become

an imposing matriarch once she raises her own family.

Aida, on the other hand, is the film’s representation

of a well-established matriarch. Owner of a lavish house in

the midst of a humble neighborhood in Lima and apparent

descendent of a military man, Aida displays an ice-cold

personality and unflinching arrogance that emphasizes her

70

status as an exceptionally self-dependent female figure. Her

violent disposal of her old piano, the relatively submissive

way in which her son talks to her, and her passive-

aggressive attitude towards Fausta remarkably convey the

high degree of intimidation a woman can inspire in spite of

the patriarchal social context. In this sense, Aida is the

complete opposite of Fausta with respect to personality. Her

mistreatment of the Andean-descent protagonist and her

benefiting from the misappropriation of Fausta’s siren song

further emphasizes the opposition between both characters,

especially since Aida evokes the negative image of her

European ancestors who conquered and exploited the

indigenous populations of the Americas. Her privileged

socio-economic condition and status as a genuine Lima native

also accentuates her antagonism to Fausta.

Magic Realism

Leaving the portrayal of womanhood aside, the second

most prominent narrative subject in The Milk of Sorrow is the

foregrounding of Andean culture, specifically the one

71

developed by migrants and their descendants in Lima. The

title of the film itself and its relevance in the plot

represent major indicatives of the narrative prominence of

Andean tradition. They also evidence the foregrounding of a

very particular phenomenon associated to Andean tradition:

magic realism. Originally a literary genre, this postmodern

cultural phenomenon is unique in that it presents an image

of the world “which, although outlandish, has many common

points with the rest of humanity” and in which “absurd,

grotesque and imaginative interpretations are not in

contradiction with reality but additives that contribute to

enrich a perceived surrounding.”70 Though not exclusive to a

Peruvian artistic imaginary as it was popularized by a wide

group of Latin American novelists in the 60s, magic realism

became closely attached to Andean culture thanks to a wave

of indigenista (pro-indigenous) Peruvian writers, the most

prominent being José María Arguedas. A Spanish-indigenous

mestizo from an Andean province, Arguedas vindicated and

70 César N. Caviedes, “Tangible and Mythical Places José M. Arguedas, Gabriel García Márquez and Pablo Neruda” in GeoJournal Vol. 38 No 1 (1996): 99-100.

72

promoted the culture[s] of Peruvian indigenous people both

inside and outside the country through the application of

subtle yet alluring supernatural elements rooted in Andean

ancestral beliefs and customs. In this way, he “glorified

the sierra as the most virtuous space of Peru […] the cradle

of all that is sublime and worthy in the Peruvian soul.”71

While The Milk of Sorrow is not set in the Andes and it does not

foreground the life of purely indigenous people, magic

realism gets to be expressed in the film and proves to be

compatible with its world since Fausta and other characters

of Andean descent evoke the mysticism of their native

culture. In doing so they make certain narrative notions

more intriguing and meaningful. Thus, Fausta’s inherited

trauma is particularly provocative and gripping because of

the unrealistic yet paradoxically compelling rationalization

that it was transmitted by her mother’s “milk of sorrow” and

that it caused Fausta’s soul to presumably “hid under the

earth due to fear.”

71 Idem: 102.

73

Following the literary tradition, magic realism is also

applied to objects such as Aida’s fallen piano and Máxima’s

potato skin in order to imply they have a soul or a

metaphysical purpose. Thus, while Noé claims that he can

hear the piano (still) singing in spite of being broken,

Lúcido suggests that the long length of the potato’s peel is

a sign that his daughter’s marriage will be prosperous. The

most remarkable representations of magic realism in the film

however are two stories orally conveyed by Fausta. The first

story is the one through which she explains to Noé why she

walks close to street walls. That the reason is the

possibility of being seized and killed by lost souls for

walking carelessly in the street—and that her brother

presumably died for doing so—exemplifies the seamless line

between the real and the supernatural in the Andean

imaginary. Moreover, that this situation only occurs in

Fausta’s former Andean hometown and that she narrates the

story in Quechua emphasize the close connection between

Andean society and magic realism. The second story, the song

about the musicians and the siren, further supports this

74

association and shows how magic realism can be used to

persuasively explain human behavior and culture as it

presents an Andean perspective of how musicians obtain and

preserve their artistic talent. While the reference to

quinoa as a form of payment underlines the story’s Andean

background, the allusion to a mighty siren and to the act of

negotiating an extension of life compose the song’s magic

component. The song proves to be meaningful both in itself

and within the film’s narrative context given the intriguing

similarity between its story and Fausta’s reality. Thus,

bearing in mind that Aida is a musician seeking for

inspiration, Fausta can be considered as the representation

of the siren, especially since she is rewarded with pearls

for singing.

What all the mythical stories conveyed by the film have

in common is that they suggest that the implications of

magic realism can be perceived or experienced only by people

of Andean ancestry. This commonality hence consolidates the

association between Andean tradition and magic realism. The

fact that Aida’s childhood doll was not taken away by the

75

soil of her garden as she was promised when she was a child

confirms the previous conclusion: that magic realism,

whether it implies constructive or detrimental consequences,

only applies to people of Andean descent.

Andean Kitsch

The foregrounding of the bizarre (poor) taste displayed

by people of Andean descent living in Lima, a cultural

manifestation I have labeled as Andean kitsch, is a

relatively unfavorable, sardonic component of the rendering

of Andean culture in The Milk of Sorrow. In spite of being one

of the reasons why a great portion of Peruvian viewers

criticized and rejected the film, it is a narrative aspect

worth of highlighting since it contributes to the film’s

realistic representation of Peruvian culture. The sequences

featuring wedding receptions organized by Fausta’s extended

family are the main narrative events in which this Andean

kitsch can be better appreciated. The campy decorations used

for them including glittery Styrofoam-made signs, pastel-

colored marquees and artificial bubbles are some of the most

76

noticeable examples of this particular style. Máxima’s

wedding offers a reprise of this over-the-top concept of

embellishment by featuring a dress with a larger-than-life

tail tied to pink balloons and a billboard featuring the

painting of a waterfall for an idyllic photographic session.

These relatively unsuccessful attempts to create dream-like,

glamorous ceremonies reflect the (underprivileged) social

group’s desire to afford experiences and commodities similar

to those idealized and enjoyed by Lima’s Europe-descended

hegemonic class. Water-related motifs like the improvised

and poorly executed swimming pool in the backyard of

Lúcido’s house, the artificial bubbles used at wedding

receptions, and the aforementioned waterfall billboard also

insinuate the willingness of Andean migrants to identify

themselves as natives of the coastal Lima and therefore as

prosperous Peruvians (unlike their peers still living in

Andean regions). Other elements like the fake staircase

leading nowhere used for Máxima’s wedding or the painted

coffins featuring flamboyant designs at one of the coffin

77

stores visited by Fausta emphasize the Andean people’s

predilection for exaggeration and eccentricity.

Even when this may be perceived by certain viewers as a

grotesque depiction of the lifestyle and customs of the

marginalized Limeans of Andean descent, the foregrounding of

the Andean kitsch reveals a side of Peruvian culture that is

as legitimate and prominent as the refined yet cynical

behavior characteristic of the social elite that Aida

embodies in the film. Indeed, what director Claudia Llosa

most likely tries to represent through this narrative aspect

is the emergence of an urban cultural phenomenon known in

Peru as “chicha” culture. Borrowed from the word used to

refer to an ancestral fermented beverage from the Andean

regions (chicha de jora), “chicha” started to be used in the

latter half of the 20th century to refer to the culture that

emerged from the peripheral towns of Lima where Andean

migrants came to live. In this sense, it connotes “the

syncretism, the mixture of all the cultures of the country

established in the capital city.”72 White it has been 72 Arturo Quispe Lázaro, “La cultura chicha en el Perú”, Construyendo nuestra interculturalidad, May 2004,

78

unfairly associated with “the poorly made, the unscrupulous,

the criminal” given the creole disdain for non-European

cultures, “chicha” culture has ultimately become a

phenomenon that encompasses a music genre and industry, a

form of slang and an idiosyncratic aesthetic that involves

“strident colors, combination of [different] dishes, the

blend of traditions” that “have been commonly associated

with bad taste.”73 This last aspect is what Llosa

specifically evokes in The Milk of Sorrow to verisimilarly

render the marginalized culture that identifies the Andean

colonies of Lima. By shedding a light on this “chicha”

culture, Llosa also identifies the gradual merger between

Andean and western cultures in Lima that will soon replace

the dichotomy that has identified Peruvian society from time

immemorial.

Socioeconomic Differences

http://www.interculturalidad.org/numero01/c/arti/c_chi_010404.htm 73 Idem.

79

Aside from the cultural contrast between Lima’s Andean

migrants and creole natives, another key social aspect

explored in the film that further underlines the remaining

social dichotomy created by these two groups is their

socioeconomic difference. The first and most evident signs

of this narrative feature are the physical spaces the

representatives of each social group inhabit. Whereas Fausta

and her family live and move around the shantytowns located

in the wide, arid periphery of Lima, Aida resides in an old-

looking yet affluent mansion that is isolated from the rest

of the city by a wooden gate and a long pathway full of

plants. These deliberately organized spaces are significant

in that they not only stress the unequal living conditions

for each social group but also reflect to a certain extent

some of their main attributes. With respect to the world of

the working poor, the extreme long shots showing infinite

crammed huts lying in the wide desert field and the tracking

shots of Fausta going through busy places like the market or

the hospital underline the aspect of overpopulation. The

construction of special, artificial structures like the

80

purple marquees or the improvised swimming pool over the

lifeless concrete-and-sand spaces highlight the people’s

eagerness to celebrate in spite of their underprivileged

reality. Regarding the world of the affluent social class,

the explicit darkness of the rooms and hallways at Aida’s

mansion reflects the obscure intentions that characterize

most people in a powerful position. Similarly, the pervasive

silence, the absence of other people and the seemingly broad

size of the rooms create a sense of emptiness that most

likely represents the reserved and callous character of

Aida.

The film also conveys socioeconomic differences in less

explicit ways that are not related to wealth possession. For

instance, the discussion between uncle Lúcido and the doctor

about Fausta’s health at the beginning of the film evidences

a cultural barrier between them as the former is unable to

comprehend the logic of traditional medicine most likely

because he did not receive a good education in his Andean

hometown. The scene where Fausta and her relatives embalm

Perpetua’s body introduces a reference to a more critical

81

kind of inequality as Fausta’s aunt mentions that during the

internal conflict she helped people to embalm their dead

relatives since there was no other way “to prove to

authorities that people had died” in the Andean regions as

they “didn’t have photos, not even IDs or any proof that we

were less born people than dead.” This information thus

evidences the outrageous level of indifference Andean people

have endured from the Lima-based government for a long time.

The film suggests through the character of Aida that

this disdain towards Andean people continues in a less

explicit manner as certain members of the creole hegemonic

class still consider it appropriate to display a ruthless

attitude towards them. Aida’s passive aggressive treatment

of Fausta can thus be considered as yet another

manifestation of socioeconomic difference. The role of maid

is the main element that emphasizes Fausta’s position of

subordination to Aida. While both of them are rather

taciturn women, Fausta’s emotional vulnerability associated

to her “milk of sorrow” trauma conveys another social

difference, reminding us that she experienced a truly

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difficult upbringing compared to the Limean lady who most

likely grew up playing the piano and enjoying the protection

of a military father (as suggested by the portrait in her

room). Aida’s use of the name Isidra to address Fausta

evidences her sense of superiority over people like Fausta,

disregarding the latter’s condition as an individual.

Evidently the boldest manifestations of Aida’s disdain and

mistreatment are her misappropriation of Fausta’s siren song

for her piano concert, her refusal to acknowledge Fausta’s

contribution to her composition, and her unwillingness to

hand in the pearls she promised to Fausta in exchange of her

singing. These last actions confirm that the inequality

between Limean creoles and people of Andean descent

encourages the former to exploit the latter in ways that are

admissible in a Peruvian society that has yet to find real

integration between all of their members. That director

Claudia Llosa exposes this problematic situation in spite of

being a member of the privileged creole class and with the

collaboration of a predominantly Andean cast suggests that

83

The Milk of Sorrow represents a step ahead into an ideally more

unified society with respect to socioeconomic categories.

Having examined the features of Peruvian social reality

highlighted by the film’s plot and certain sensible

directorial choices, it is now pertinent to focus on the

specifically audiovisual aspects that compose Claudia

Llosa’s meticulously artistic film style. As relevant for

the film’s success as Fausta’s thought-provoking story, this

film style does not merely embellish an otherwise depressive

narrative but also reinforces some of the cultural themes

previously discussed. It can be segmented into three

categories: the urban mise-en-scène, the revealing

cinematography, and the Fausta-revolving soundtrack.

The Periphery as Space

With respect to the first component, The Milk of Sorrow can

be considered as a film heavily concerned about space given

the abundance of landscape and architectural shots

throughout the film. The sandy and hilly periphery of Lima

is the main area foregrounded by these shots as it

84

represents Fausta’s urban habitat. The final shot of the

prologue sequence featuring Perpetua’s testimony is the

earliest one that evidences the periphery’s particular

relevance for both the film and its protagonist. The shot in

question starts as a medium shot of the wide window in

Perpetua’s room that offers a view of Fausta’s precarious

neighborhood, different layers of walls from unfinished

buildings shown in the middle ground and the sandy hills

full of indiscernible houses in the background. The window

slowly becomes larger as the camera zooms in, stretching up

to the screen’s borders by the time Fausta realizes that her

mother just died. Given her central position she looks as if

she were sinking in the lifeless landscape that ends up

framing her figure. Thus, aside from establishing the

geographic background for following scenes, this shot is

also significant in that it introduces the periphery as an

overwhelming and intimidating environment for Fausta.

This latter perception is later reaffirmed through

subsequent shots that either depict or suggest Fausta’s

powerlessness with respect to urban spaces. The scenes at

85

the hospital, the bus and the market express this sense of

vulnerability more explicitly as they show a visibly

discomforted Fausta in the middle of constrictive structures

that frame her more ominously than the aforementioned

landscape shot. The condensed dimension of the bus she takes

with her uncle and the several men on board that surround

her reflect the threatening connotations urban spaces can

acquire in the film. The imposing long shots of Fausta’s

shantytown convey the same image of an intimidating

environment as they dwarf Fausta and other characters with

the vastness of the grey and terracotta hills full of sand

and crumbling buildings. The use of high and low camera

angles help to underline this overwhelming spatial

desolation. This can be appreciated in the shot where Fausta

stops walking down the stairs of a hill, one of the most

symbolic depictions of the periphery as a threatening space

since it is aligned with Fausta’s greatest fear: a strange

man (a potential rapist) approaching towards her. Hence, not

unlike the role the poor streets of Rome play with respect

to the unfortunate life of Antonio Ricci in Bicycle Thieves

86

(Vittorio De Sica, 1948), the omnipresent panoramic views of

Lima’s gloomy periphery in The Milk of Sorrow externalize to a

great extent the challenging psychological situation of

Fausta.

The prominence of urban spaces in the film also

reflects the director’s intention to genuinely represent the

postmodern Peruvian nation. The fact that Lima is the only

Peruvian territory used as setting does not make the film

less representative of the nation. On the contrary, it is

the ideal location considering that in the contemporary

period the capital city, after receiving thousands of

migrants over the last fifty years, is “no longer a

viceregal remainder inlaid in the Republic but a great

provincial city.“74 The film’s focus on the periphery is

hence all the more appropriate since here is where the new

Limeans live. Unlike the plot, the space in The Milk of Sorrow

remains fully accurate to the social reality of Lima since

it is not altered by elements of magic realism and it is

thoroughly explored, from Perpetua’s bedroom to the crowded 74 José Carlos Huayhuaca , “Para hacer cine, ir al cine”, El cine peruano visto por críticos y realizadores, 80.

87

market and from Aida’s garden to the streets of Fausta’s

shantytown. Through this exhaustive illustration of the

Limean space, Llosa demonstrates that “in cinema, the

question of the nation is intimately bound up with questions

of space.” 75 Moreover, by exploiting this space to convey a

story about the culture it shelters, she “creat[es]

narrative space; that is, to connect particular local spaces

to the shared, public narrative that underpins the

nation.”76 Said differently, The Milk of Sorrow’s director

succeeds in foregrounding Peruvian culture equally through

both the film’s narrative subject and its corresponding

urban setting.

Contemplative Cinematography

Aside from the profound extraction of meaning from the

urban shooting locations, the visual component of Claudia

Llosa’s film style also involves a skillful and deliberate

use of the camera, one that goes beyond capturing the image

or action placed in front of the lens. This is evident from 75 Angelo Restivo, The Cinema of Economic Miracles: Visuality and Modernization in the Italian Art Film (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), 6.76 Idem.

88

the different ways in which the camera follows and frames

Fausta. From an extreme close up at the hospital room to an

extreme long shot at the shoreline, the camera does not

merely emphasize Fausta’s narrative centrality but also

encapsulates her mood. The two tracking shots at the market

exemplify the latter quality as they show Fausta at

different stages of her character development: while the

earlier one stresses her high anxiety for the outside world

and her inability to orient herself, the later one presents

a more determined Fausta who is not even afraid of

exchanging gazes with other strangers as she makes her way

through the market’s alleys. The camera also emulates

Fausta’s reflective character when it offers longer- than-

average close ups of the objects she happens to be

observing, some of which have little or no narrative

relevance. From the intermittent circular light bulb at the

hospital room to the flower potato Noé gives her, the camera

carefully examines these visual elements as if they all were

important and suggests symbolic meanings for some of them.

In this sense it behaves like another character that shares

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Fausta’s perspective of reality and which invites viewers to

be as reflective as her.

Some particular compositions throughout The Milk of Sorrow

other than the close ups of objects further evidence the

contemplative character of the camera. The sequence in which

Fausta visits a few coffin stores offers two notable

examples. In the first one, black humor is conveyed as the

camera, sharing Fausta’s point of view, only shows the legs

of a child’s seemingly lifeless body lying in the ground

next to an open coffin. It is only until the child moves

that Fausta and the film’s viewers realize he is not dead.

In the second shot, Fausta is framed looking at the coffin

featuring a painting of a sunset by the Pacific Ocean. This

sight is relevant in that it foreshadows the place where

Perpetua will actually be buried and the meditative attitude

with which Fausta will approach the shoreline. In other

compositions that do not represent Fausta’s perspective the

camera still gets to display a reflective character by

performing long takes on subjects that imply little or no

action. The shots of Fausta waiting in her bedroom at Aida’s

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mansion and those focusing on a specific object from the

mise-en-scène like a steaming kettle in the kitchen are fine

examples of this latter kind of deliberately lingering

images that end up contributing to the film’s high aesthetic

quality. The same can be argued about the greatly

symmetrical long shots that abound in the film, especially

those showing Fausta in relation to her proximate

environment. Whether the space is Aida’s entrance gate or

the waterfall billboard at Máxima’s wedding, these

compositions also emphasize Fausta’s condition as a

relegated, misunderstood member of Limean/Peruvian society

by placing her in most cases around the margins of the

image. The way Fausta is hidden from the main stage during

Aida’s piano concert is probably the most explicit example

of how the camera can express and underline social

marginalization through the use of a calculated angle,

especially since this angle places Fausta in a space of

complete darkness.

Sound as Introspection

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The film’s script grants the soundtrack a notable role

in The Milk of Sorrow due to the meaningful lyrics of the songs

performed by Perpetua and Fausta. Claudia Llosa’s film style

further highlights this film component by elaborating an

intriguing interplay between moments of silence and a

recurrent, non-diegetic music theme for Fausta. In this way,

setting aside the diegetic Peruvian cumbia songs played

during sequences of celebration, sound exerts great

influence in the definition of the film’s low-spirited mood.

The predominance of silence over any other sound mode is

most likely the main source of this potential to reinforce

the connotations of grief and dullness conveyed by the mise-

en-scène and camera. Manifested through the absence of non-

diegetic music and/or the display of faint diegetic sound,

silence also transmits a life-like atmosphere that exalts

the realism expressed by the foregrounding of urban space.

More significantly, not unlike the lingering camera, the

absence of sound externalizes Fausta’s taciturn and

introspective character. It proves to be the most

appropriate way to complement her inner pain, fear and

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thoughtfulness as she mostly deals with those internally.

The scenes featuring a gradual disappearance of sound as

Fausta walks away from the source of diegetic upbeat cumbia

music evidence how silence is attached to her figure,

underlining her retreat to an isolated environment to deal

with her painful memories and emotions.

With the exception of the siren song, all of Fausta’s

songs are used as the only means through which her

psychological distress is explicitly conveyed to the film’s

viewers. Because some of them are sung in voiceover and the

rest are only performed when no one or only her mother’s

corpse is around Fausta, it is possible to consider these

songs as manifestations of an undisclosed process of

introspection within Fausta. Whether it is a song that

justifies her fear of a potential rape or one that tries to

encourage her to find her supposedly lost soul, all of the

songs signify internal conversations through which Fausta

reinforces her attitude with respect to different

circumstances. This notion of introspection is also (less

explicitly) suggested and emphasized by the music theme

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composed by Peruvian musician Selma Mutal for Fausta. A slow

yet melodious composition performed exclusively on string

instruments, this theme accompanies the protagonist at some

instances in which Fausta faces uncertainty about the future

and remains speechless as she probably thinks about it like

in the moment she believes her mother is being buried in

Lúcido’s backyard. Though it is not played with the same

length in every occasion and does not connote the same

attitude, the theme reflects the consistency of Fausta’s

introspection throughout the film. Hence, its juxtaposition

with the film’s prevalent moments of silence—aside from

giving a minor, peculiar rhythm to the film’s structure—can

be considered as a purely aural representation of Fausta’s

struggle to cope with the real world. The silence that

accompanies the final shot seems adequate in that it

stresses Fausta’s achieved inner peace.

The aforementioned components of Llosa’s film style in

The Milk of Sorrow, not unlike its thought-provoking narrative,

remarkably contribute to the film’s avant-garde quality. In

other words, the Limean filmmaker gets to enhance the self-

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conscious representation of Peruvian social reality and

particular aesthetic attributes expressed in the story

through the application of these special visual and aural

configurations. From the foregrounding of urban spaces to

the juxtaposition of a slow melody and silence, none of the

stylistic elements end up transmitting a pretentious quality

since their purpose is not limited to the embellishment of

the film. On the contrary, whether they externalize the mood

of the film’s protagonist or underline particular attributes

of the different environments depicted, their presence

mainly responds to elements of the narrative. Llosa’s film

style is thus as deliberate and meaningful as Fausta’s

deeply culturally representative story.

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III. CONCLUSION

Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow proves to be an

incomparable, complex and well-executed film that portrays

how humans are capable of overcoming pain and fear by

stimulating the willpower that lies in them. The

transmission of this universal experience through the figure

of Fausta makes the film all the more admirable since she

represents the survivors of a harsh internal conflict,

especially the women who have also struggled to gain respect

in a fierce patriarchal society. The film’s slow pace and

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careful rendition of space contribute to an unconventional

style that reinforces the realistic quality of its story.

The evocation of magic realism and the application of

ingenious stylistic elements like a contemplative

cinematography complement the poetic character of the plot

and significantly elevate the film’s aesthetic value. Its

acquisition of cinematic prestige, boldly recognized with

the 59th Berlin International Film Festival’s Golden Bear,

is thus the result of putting together a challenging,

gripping story and a set of invigorating directorial choices

that include the casting of a solemnly talented Magaly

Solier.

As a Peruvian film, The Milk of Sorrow evidently represents

a landmark that reaffirms the cinema’s longstanding purpose

to represent Peru’s cultural identity by displaying an

honest, self-conscious representation of contemporary Limean

society. Llosa’s film also sets itself apart from classic

Peruvian cinema with respect to cultural identity since it

challenges the longstanding dichotomy between rural and

urban cultures with the foregrounding of the emerging

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Limeans of Andean ancestry, the people who embody the new

predominant culture in the country. The detailed depiction

of the peripheral shantytowns and other urban spaces

reflects Llosa’s almost sociological interest in providing

an accurate portrayal of their (underprivileged) reality.

The prominence of cultural manifestations such as cumbia

music and Andean kitsch further stresses the plot’s deep-

rootedness in everyday Peruvian culture. While it

acknowledges the endurance of both a marked distinction

between affluent creoles and working-class Andean people and

the former’s disdain for the latter, the film ultimately

suggests that the second group will shape the future of

Peruvian society. The potato flower at the end of the film

gracefully embodies the latter idea as it implies that

anything grown in the Andes can also be equally developed in

the seemingly infertile Lima, even their most prominent and

precious of crops.

Within the context of Peruvian cinema, Llosa’s

sophomore work remarkably revives the auteur subdivision

that used to be exclusively embodied by Armando Robles Godoy

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since the late 60s. Thus, The Milk of Sorrow convincingly

recovers a space in Peruvian cinema for an auteurist

representation of reality in which the aesthetic framework

is as prominent and distinctive as the narrative. Llosa

proves to be as concerned as Robles Godoy about promoting a

better cognizance of the country among Peruvian viewers as

they both offer stories about marginal social experiences

with a substantial degree of realism. Unlike the veteran

director, however, Llosa never pushes the envelope too far

to “not appeal to any particular public” (as the former

prided himself on doing). That the author of the book that

inspired the screenplay praises the film for making her

research subject accessible to a wider audience supports the

last perception. In this sense, The Milk of Sorrow arguably

connotes not only a revival but also an evolution of

Peruvian auteur cinema by being a thought-provoking and

aesthetically complex film that is yet intelligible and

potentially resonant for the average (Peruvian) viewer.

Even when this intelligibility was not enough to

guarantee commercial success, Llosa’s film can be considered

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as influential for Peruvian cinema in general as the films

of the 50’s Cusco School or those made by major director

Francisco Lombardi. Aside from its promotion of an

encompassing cultural identity—already a notable achievement

for a country that has struggled to embrace its

multiculturalism—The Milk of Sorrow is further exalted by the

fact that it got to be made at a time when Peruvian cinema

was still mostly associated with embarrassment and failure

and was supported by a film law that has done little to

genuinely push the project of a national film industry

forward. While it was not the first Peruvian film to be

praised worldwide, the high bar set by its Golden Bear and

Academy Award nomination proved that Peruvian cinema has the

potential to conceive truly world-class productions not

unlike other cinemas across the Latin American region. In

this sense, going back to Oscar Contreras’ view that

Peruvian films can be segmented into “good, bad and

horrible,” The Milk of Sorrow arguably introduced the category

of “exceptional” and by doing so posed the ultimate

challenge to the enduring skepticism regarding the latter’s

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future and value. Its low commercial appeal and unorthodox

film style surely complicate its consideration as a paragon

for all of Peruvian cinema, especially since this cinema has

yet to be supported by several profitable movies in order to

become a solid film industry. On the other hand, it embodies

a model that can improve Peru’s critical reputation beyond

its borders and thus give it a better chance to attain a

prominent position in world cinema than competing in the

mainstream film market. In the end, The Milk of Sorrow signifies

a step forward to a richer, more daring and more persuasive

cinema that lives up to the splendor of Peruvian culture.

Bearing in mind that in the long run its failures

outnumber its achievements by far, it is possible to resolve

that Peruvian cinema has yet to do justice to what Robles

Godoy considered “an eminently cinematographic country.” Had

the 1972 film law remained active until today—and perhaps

been established long time before—the “exceptional” and

“good” Peruvian films would have probably exceeded the “bad

and horrible” ones and hence put together a more cohesive

and refined portrayal of the country’s cultural identity,

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one that would have convinced Peruvian viewers about the

value of supporting a national cinema of their own.

Regardless of everything that it has not accomplished yet,

Peruvian cinema has made enough progress to justify its

status as a legitimate (and resilient) film tradition. Thus,

while it has not acquired the maturity and prominence of a

consolidated national cinema, it has earned enough merits to

encourage attention and support from its national government

in the shape of two major—albeit inconsistent—film laws. It

has survived the different backlashes entailed by Hollywood-

backed distributors and exhibitors and by national film

critics, another exceptional triumph for a developing film

industry. Its expansion across the country with the rise of

small-scale yet thriving regional cinemas that together

constitute a major alternative rural film movement confirms

that Peruvian cinema represents a truly national form of

cultural representation. The existence of a prominent body

of film scholars and institutions devoted to the

appreciation of cinema are also clear symptoms of the

consistent (minimum) relevance of Peruvian cinema in its

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national culture. Obviously, the short yet fruitful periods

of production throughout its history including the more

consistent 1972-1992 era, the current series of critically

acclaimed films led by The Milk of Sorrow and the unexpectedly

popular revival of commercial cinema in 2013 are the most

important achievements that evidence Peruvian cinema’s

vitality and its potential to keep evolving.

The absence of a substantial and faithful audience for

Peruvian cinema, as evidenced by The Milk of Sorrow’s low box

office performance, is undoubtedly its greatest obstacle

towards consolidation. Though the older films are partly

responsible for this situation due to their predominantly

negative reputation, conciliation between Peruvian viewers

and their cinema in the contemporary era has been

complicated mainly by Hollywood’s fierce (and dirty)

competition, and by Peru’s recurrent socioeconomic and

political instabilities throughout the 20th century. Thus,

it has been a very difficult enterprise to convince an

audience heavily exposed to American escapist, high-budgeted

blockbusters to give a chance to less sophisticated Peruvian

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movies that mostly stress national social issues.

Perseverance and some memorable films fortunately have

enabled Peruvian cinema to make it through the most

convoluted times in the nation’s history and reach a less

problematic and more affluent period today. The combination

of the recent wave of critically praised titles with the

emerging commercial hits, along with a much more favorable

economic context than that of the last most successful

period, will hopefully encourage the formation of a steadier

and prouder viewership for Peruvian cinema. Considering the

latest regional films have succeeded in establishing a

strong relationship with their target rural viewers, it

should not be too long before the rest of Peruvian

productions achieve the same degree of affinity with

audiences across the country. Their increasing scope of

cultures represented throughout the years, going from the

Limean elite in the 1900s to the indigenous people from the

Andes and jungle around the 50s and finally to the working

poor migrants of Lima by the end of the century, encourages

the feasibility of the latter outcome.

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Aside from its challenges and the persistence with

which it has fought them, what distinguishes Peruvian cinema

from other film traditions is certainly the people and

cultures it represents and the self-conscious way in which

it does so. Thus, unlike a foreign production’s neutral or

artificial rendition of the country, most Peruvian films

have offered stories deeply ingrained in the different

Peruvian social realities. From the comedies of Amauta Films

in the late 30s foregrounding contemporaneous creole

lifestyle to the war films from the last three decades based

on the internal conflict, Peruvian cinema has not merely

depicted events that take place in the country but has also

highlighted the details of the different cultural

backgrounds explored including languages and locations, even

with fictional narrative subjects. This emphasis on culture

notably materializes the desires of the first Peruvian

moviegoers in the silent era and of Armando Robles Godoy

several decades later to appreciate distinct social

realities across the country in the big screen. The

continuity of this close, meticulous rendering of different

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sides of the nation through contemporary films like Llosa’s

suggest that Peruvian cinema strives to be the main sculptor

of its “imagined community.”

The present thesis has exposed the causes,

difficulties, virtues, defects and outcomes of Peruvian

cinema through a broad overview of its history and of the

major theoretical notions surrounding it, in particular

those formulated by Peruvian film critics and scholars. By

doing so it has demonstrated that Peruvian cinema is worth

of appreciation not only because it has survived a constant

struggle against issues like low popularity and limited

funding but also because it has delivered a sufficient

amount of films that notably represent Peruvian culture

notwithstanding these obstacles. Through the analysis of

Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow I have attempted to evaluate

the extent to which Peruvian cinema has continued to closely

rely on its national culture in the 21st century, and the

level of virtuosity of the film’s main narrative and

stylistic aspects that allowed it to become Peru’s most

critically acclaimed film of all time. Together, the two

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major components of my research convey the idea that

Peruvian cinema has the potential to become a consolidated

form of cultural representation within its nation and a

major national cinema abroad, most likely because of its

critically recognized films. The perseverance Peruvian

cinema has displayed in the past and the emergence of more

of the latter kind of films since The Milk of Sorrow’s release

support this prediction. The newest wave of commercially

successful films from 2013 also encourages a better standing

for Peruvian cinema and a more auspicious growth as an

industry. Perhaps in five years their impact will require a

new assessment of Peruvian cinema’s relevance. For

instance, it would be interesting to compare the reception

and influence of Llosa’s film with those of last year’s Asu

Mare, the highest-grossing Peruvian film yet. Perhaps a

decade from now, assuming the expansion of both commercial

and critically acclaimed films will continue, a comparison

between the new Peruvian cinema and that of the 1972-1992

period would convey a nuanced appreciation of the purpose of

Peruvian cinema as a whole. The examination of the regional

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cinemas would also test the extent to which the still

predominant Lima-based division lives up to the country’s

multicultural character. Until future studies can encompass

these different objectives, the present thesis offers enough

arguments that suggest a more hopeful future for Peruvian

cinema, a film tradition that has proven—like Fausta’s

potato flower—that art can emerge from even the most

infertile of soils.

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FILMOGRAPHY

La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow), directed by Claudia Llosa

(2008; Lima, Peru: Play Music & Video, 2010), DVD.

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