Courage

Solid but unremarkable account of the last months of Peru's martyred María Elena Moyano (Cepeda), from the first appearance of the Shining Path in her home town of Villa Salvador to the height of its fear and her assassination, which galvanised national resistance to the terrorists. Portrayed as a campaigner for a new spirit of participation and solidarity at odds with a reactionary government and a tyrannical insurrection, her story is as sympathetic and disturbing as you'd expect, never sensationalised. María herself is given an ordinary human warmth and range of attachments. Her flights from and back to her home town become dramatically repetitive, though, and the film lacks the sort of attention to detail that would really engage the viewer.