The Milk of Sorrow
- Szczegóły
- Nadrzędna kategoria: Filmy
- Kategoria: Recenzje filmowe z Guardiana
This Peruvian lament examining how distress passes down the generations is subtle and wonderfully moving, says Catherine Shoard
- Catherine Shoard
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 April 2010
As with Annie, it's the opening number that sets the tone. A very old, very ill Peruvian woman sings about how she was brutally raped and forced to eat her murdered husband's penis (seasoned with gunpowder) during the guerrilla uprisings of the 1980s. Then she dies. It's extraordinary: an immediately arresting mix of the mordant and the moving. The rest of the movie – winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, nominated for a best foreign language Oscar – continues in the same key, as the focus shifts to her daughter, Fausta, who has inserted a potato into her vagina for fear she'll suffer the same fate. "It must have gotten in there by itself," protests her uncle to a doctor. "There's lots of food at home." Fausta's bleeding he ascribes to the "milk of sorrow": trauma passed to children through the breast milk of their distressed mothers. The legacy of upset is at the heart of Llosa's brilliant film – and it's a film that wears its heart firmly on its sleeve. But it's also surprisingly subtle and funny, more concerned with the everyday objects and encounters – wedding cakes and pet pigeons – than with gender politics. Its optimism is evidence of its virtuosity.
arresting : frapujący, przykuwający uwagę
ascribe (to) : przypisywać (coś komuś)
concerned with : przejęty, zmartwiony
distress : rozpacz, cierpienie
distressed : zrozpaczony, cierpiący
encounter : spotkanie
evidence : dowód
extraordinary : nadzwyczajny, niezwykły
fate : los
focus : uwaga
guerrilla : partyzantka, partyzancki
gunpowder : proch strzelniczy
in the same key : na tę samą nutę
insert : wkładać
lament : lament, opłakiwanie
legacy : spadek, spuścizna, dziedzictwo
mordant : zjadliwy, sarkastyczny
seasoned (with) : przyprawiony
shift : przesuwać się, przenosić się
uprising : powstanie
virtuosity : wirtuozeria
wear the heart on one’s sleeve : mieć serce na dłoni
