Peru Best Films - FilmRoot

Song Without A Name – Plight of a Pregnant Indigenous Woman in Peru

Song Without A Name Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Song Without a Name is a tragedy on many levels. Most immediately, there’s Georgina’s personal tragedy. Then there’s the tragedy of Peru in the 1980’s – oppressed by a military state. And in the background, there’s the tragedy of Peru’s indigenous population, that is being left behind. Song Without A Name is a brilliantly made black and white drama of one indigenous woman’s experience in a turbulent 1980’s Peru.

From: Peru, South America
Watch: Trailer, FilmMovement
Next: Dark Skull, El Dorado XXI, Roma

The Clash – Spain/Latin American Competition – SBIFF

Roberto, an 18 year old boy, joins his father in Montreal to escape the violence in Peru. His father, now Bob Montoya, fled Peru a few years earlier and now lives with his Canadian wife and daughter. The Clash shows both the culture clash for Roberto and the macho clash with his now Canadian father. It plays out a bit like a Martin Rejtman film in which the oddball humour has been switched out for a tense underlying machismo.

The arrival of Roberto is a challenge to Bob’s male pride. We don’t know how much of a success Bob was in Peru, but he’s desperate to present himself as a success story in Canada. Roberto obviously knows where he came from in Peru so Bob wants to show him how far he’s come. Roberto is the medium for Bob to prove himself to people back in Peru.

In order to maintain his image, he tries to sell how great Canada is to his son. He keeps telling him it’s a place where you can be anything, a place where you can make lots of money. He portrays himself as a businessman that is one step away from the next big deal with a nice house and a nice car. However, the house, the car, and his suit are all for show. The nice house and car that he ‘owns’ are really his wife’s and his suit is just a image that covers up the debts he’s incurring.

Like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite, Bob Montoya resorts to machismo to present himself as a big man. Whilst he’s grateful to have his son with him – as it’s a chance to prove to someone he’s achieved the American dream – he also sees him as a challenge to his masculinity. He’s a new male figure in the house that takes some of his wife’s and mistress’ attention away from him.

Their relationship fits Freud’s Oedipus complex theory. Bob is the father figure that dominates the household. Roberto is the son that reluctantly lives within the rules his father sets. They rarely talk beyond a few awkward words as Roberto lives in silence. Bob asserts his male dominance over Roberto by kissing his wife and his mistress in front of his son. In contrast, Roberto has fantasies of hooking up with his father’s mistress. In a final awkward party, Roberto battles his father for a dance with his mistress. It’s only in the club when he’s drunk that he can overcome his ‘castration anxiety‘. However, his father never allows her to dance with him in order to preserve his position as the alpha male.

The Clash is a brilliantly awkward film about a father and his son battling to prove their masculinity in a place foreign to the both of them.

Eldorado XXI – Peru’s Modern Version of the American West

Eldorado XXI Film Difficulty Ranking: 5

The American West is still alive today in Peru. Migrants from across the country are flocking to the highest settlement in the world for their ‘American dream’ (their rags to riches story). However, the only thing most people find is an incredibly harsh landscape. Check it out below.

Why Watch Eldorado XXI?

You’re into ‘Slow Film‘ and want to see more!
To see a film from Peru – and our first feature from this diverse South American country on FilmRoot
Experience a little of Peruvian mountain life
If you’re fascinated by the American West and the Gold Rush

The Breakdown

ElDorado XXI starts with a 25 minute still shot of miners walking up and down a mountain in the darkness. All you can make out is the vague silhouette of their bodies and the mountain from their headlamps. Whilst we watch these miners ramble up and down in the dark we hear the story of one of them.

One of them arrived at Rinconada (the mine) a few months ago after they hit bankruptcy in the city. They heard the rags to riches stories of people finding gold at the Rinconada mine and followed their version of the ‘American dream.’

Unfortunately for them, finding riches was not as easy as in the stories they had heard. They were homeless for parts and had to spend months away from their children, left with relatives in the city. The only thing they could do was work for longer and pray for luck.

That’s when you hear some strange stories about superstitions and rituals that some of the miners use to help their luck. Sacrificing Alpaca fetuses apparently bring luck, but a human fetus would ‘be more effective’. Welcome to the Peruvian wild west!

Conclusion

Eldorado XXI gives you an idea of what life is like in the Peruvian mountains – the modern equivalent of the American wild-west. People flock to this beautiful landscape in search of quick riches, but most of them never strike gold. You’ll see the life and community these migrants have formed and hear of the weird rituals that they try to boost their luck. Well worth a watch.

The Restoration – Latin American Competition – SBIFF

The Restoration features Tato, a useless 50 year old cocaine addict that has moved back into his mothers home following his latest divorce. In a moment of misguided ingenuity he decides to sell his bedridden mother’s house (one of the last old houses in Lima) behind her back. To fool her, he recreates her bedroom in a shed in the desert.

In it’s best moments, The Restoration contains a tragic satire of the rapid modernisation of Lima. It’s self aware and able to play comedy off a dark(ish) subject matter with ease, much like Luis Estrada’s El Infierno (which manages to get away with poking fun at the narco-state of Mexico).

However, unfortunately this commentary becomes obscured as the movie chooses to focus on carrying out the ‘magic trick’ of switching Tato’s mum from her old bedroom into a makeshift one without her noticing. It turns the movie from a promising social satire into a relationship comedy of the dying mum and her useless cocaine-addicted son. After beginning the film with a brief commentary on the consequences of Lima’s modernization, the cheap laughs and attempted tugging on heart strings are the easy way to end the film.

Ultimately The Restoration is ends as a somewhat funny Latin film in the realm of the Eugenio Derbez film universe. There’s stereotyped characters, quick laughs, and melodramatic cheesiness. If that sounds like your thing, this film might just be for you.

The Best Families – Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival 2021

“Why work if we can do it for you?” are the words at the bottom of a billboard with a white woman floating on a pool that starts The Best Families. The billboard hangs ironically above Luzmilla and Peta’s humble neighborhood in the suburbs. We see it as they start their long commute to work, switching their barren neighborhood for two aristocratic family houses in central Lima.

The two families they work for are stereotypically snobby. They look down on Spanish people that don’t measure up to their lineage and direct plenty of snide comments at each other to try and establish their superiority. Their snobbery is the target of this satire. Today, at their birthday get-together, an unexpected bombshell throws the event into chaos as a long held secret involving both households, crossing class and race, is finally revealed.

Whilst the chaos is unfolding inside their upper class bubble, there’s also chaos outside. The city is being taken over by a mass protest. However, despite the news attention, these two elite families are completely oblivious of the protests. Aerial shots of their living complex (two large houses surrounded by green gardens) marks their position of privilege. Their complex is the only greenery in the shot, and it’s surrounded by cramped urban development and the many people protesting. The shots highlight the stark division between the privileged rich and the rest of the country. It also shows the bubble they live in – they’re not aware of the people outside their property because they don’t have to interact with them. This means that they’re also a bit out of touch with society, making the satire all the more funny.

The unfolding secret creates drama that reminded me of the family chaos in Knives Out. Just like a whodunnit, we want to keep watching to find out how each family member will react. After all, who doesn’t like laughing at the snobby rich? It’s always comforting to know that they have just as much drama in their family as the exploitative reality talk shows focusing on the underprivileged – and us. However, it does end with a small gut punch. Despite the big reveals and controversy the film exposes amongst the aristocratic family, the film ultimately ends on a book-ended shot of the maids carrying out the same life they started with. No matter what comes to light, the wealthy will always hold their power.

Head to our LALIFF 2021 Hub for more reviews from the 20th edition of LALIFF.