March 6, 2010: La Teta Asustada (The Milk of Sorrow)
I don’t even know where to start with this one. A slow and deliberate slice of life in a strange little village in Peru, La Teta Asustada was fascinating but at the same time baffling. I need to be careful in explaining the plot, such as it is, to preserve other viewers’ experience of discovering the film’s strange sequence of events.
A young woman, born during a time of terrorism in her country, is said to have taken in the fear and sorrow of those times through her mother’s milk, hence the title. Her mother has just died and she lives with her uncle. The disputes about how to deal with her mother’s remains, and how to deal with physical ailments she has had since her youth, preoccupy the extended family over a period of time during which the woman goes out to get a job as a housekeeper for a wealthy family. She sings improvised songs all the time, which capture her feelings at any given time and relate to her sorrows.
As I say, the film is a quiet but fascinating and gripping journey, rewarding as an examination of deep-rooted pain and with the earlier unrest in Peru always hovering in the background as the true-life horror which fuels this emotional journey. To say much more would be to deprive a new viewer of a film viewing experience curiously unlike most others. Nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language film, La Teta Asustada did not win but is worth a look.
Leaving North America can be rewarding.
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