Directed By: Jayro Bustamante
Written By: Jayro Bustamante, Lisandro Sanchez
Everything we experience is a product of our mind filtering reality through a lens we were taught to look through, scoring the brain, folding the past into the present. Often times the ideals that sit as the foundation for our dearest relationships are perpetuations of distorted perceptions, handed down generationally in habit and abuse, ceremony and sacrifice. The roles we assume, the face we see roasting inside the hollow of a tree struck by lightning is, in large part, a product of those two flailing fish that smacked together to make you. The beautiful, tragic horror of La Llorona is not in how it exposes man as a monster but how it exposes the monstrosity of man and the truth lurking beneath the surface of dark, bloody water.
The plot of the film surrounds the judgement of a fictional Guatemalan dictator during a trial concerning his atrocious war crimes. After a controversial ruling results in a massive protest at their home, his family's foundational belief in him as well as those of their reality are shaken to their core. As details of the events leak into the families bubble, they begin to question what they know to be the “truth,” until things within and people within become unrecognizable.
Using the subjectivity of class as a tool, Bustamente organically informs the characters reality’s while manipulating the audience's ideas of what is possible. The General’s family lived a life of luxury built on the skeletons of the people at the mercy of his agenda’s, veiling themselves in a worldview capable of vindicating their sins. Their selfish naivete reflects the distance those in political power are capable of maintaining while perpetrating acts with mortal ramifications for the citizens of the society they’re supposed to serve.
The writing, direction and performances all bolster a vision as haunting as it is affecting.
Bustamente’s minimalist style allows for mundanity to send terror ringing through the mind. Every time he lingers on a long hallway, a faucet or an open door, whether in broad daylight or dark night, it’s nerve wracking.
The authenticity of the representation of the lore is reinforced by the varying ideas surrounding the supernatural that motivate the “worlds” these characters inhabit. The fact that it’s based on the real genocide of the Mayan Guatemalans of the Ixil region helps to construct the culture and trauma of the oppressed with the dimension that only reality can offer.
The film masterfully layers its subject matter in dense, meaningful imagery that deepens character and continually reframes the story, effectively guiding the viewer through this family's terrible awakening. Bustamente and his cinematographer (Nicolás Wong) use symmetry to exploit the expectations of a haunting film as depicted in the mainstream, subverting even a seasoned horror viewer’s idea of events. The subtle use of sound and its representation of the Generals fractured surreality mirrors, not only, this family's experience of La Llorona but a deconstruction of the tropes associated with ghost stories.
La Llorona does not need to be represented by a “spooky ghost.” Her presence is that of the people protesting -- her influence, on the minds of the innocents capable of enacting her vengeance. In the same way that memories, crawling from the back of one’s mind to the front, steely fingers digging into the gray matter pressing nerves like buttons, make shadows on the wall dance like a lover long lost, so do the the beating of drums echoing in the halls of the General’s glass house.
This film is a powerful meditation on the delusions that choke truth into the dark, justifying brutality. It honors latin folklore with a grounded portrayal of the trauma denied by history and buried by blood caked hands. It is a tribute to the righteous retribution of those who go unheard, abused and forgotten while, simultaneously, portraying that truth can find its way into the hearts of even the most zealous.
If you have not had the opportunity to experience this film, do yourself a favor, watch it twice.