The Milk of Sorrow

Time Out says
The terrorisation of Peruvian women during the Shining Path campaigns of the 1980s is the troubling background to Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s frank, free-floating drama about the power of folk myth on young minds. As a dying woman sings of being gang raped and forced to eat the severed penis of her dead lover, we learn that her chronically demure daughter Fausta (Magaly Solier) has a potato lodged in her vagina as a crude form of contraception. Influenced by traditional songs and rituals, Faustina is repulsed by men, and the film tells of a gradual relaxing of sexual tensions within her as she attempts to bankroll her late mother’s funeral by working for a neurotic female composer. Concentrating on the implications of honouring family tradition as well as the occasional hokiness of those same traditions, Llosa sensitively captures the deep-rooted poetry of this system of beliefs while allowing us the space to assess its cultural and spiritual merits.
Details
Release details
Rated:
15
Release date:
Friday April 30 2010
Duration:
100 mins
Cast and crew
Director:
Claudia Llosa
Screenwriter:
Claudia Llosa
Cast:
Magaly Solier
Susi Sanchez
Efrain Solis
Susi Sanchez
Efrain Solis