Latin America and Indigenous Heroines

Within the last few years there’s been a rise in films from Latin America with Indigenous heroines and stories centered around political strife. Of those films two stand out the most, one that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves and one that has received a record number of award nominations. While these two stories are very different and stand in opposite genres, drama and horror, they have many basic similarities. They both focus on Indigenous women, their languages are spoken on screen, they work for middle- and upper-class families, and the stories take place during major political protests in their respective countries. 

The best way to introduce a viewer into this wave of Latin film would be to start with Roma Alfonso Cuaron’s semi-autobiographical film which centers around Cleo, a character he created to represent the woman who helped raise him as a child, who works as a domestic worker for a middle-class family (Renfro). The film is set in early 1970s Mexico and focuses on Cleo and her day-to-day life working for Sofia and her husband Antonio. The opening shot is of a multicolored cement floor with water being thrown towards the focus of the shot, like waves crashing against the sand, and a reflection of an airplane passing by, both will be seen multiple times throughout the film at the important moments in Cleo’s life. The family clearly treats Cleo like a member, the children more so than Sofia, but small moments throughout the film are reminders to the audience and Cleo that she isn’t part of the family until the end, every time Sofia lashes out at Cleo in anger. 

Cleo is shown balancing a life outside of her job, she’s very close to Adele, the home’s cook who she speaks Mixtec with, and even goes on a double date with her along with Adele’s boyfriend and his cousin Fermin. Fermin and Cleo end up having relations together in a scene where we see Fermin doing martial arts naked using his shower rod as a kendo stick, a small detail that later plays a big part in his character (Torrealba). From there we find out Cleo is pregnant when she confides in Sofia and she asks if she’ll be fired, a common practice that families would and still do when their workers become pregnant, and Sofia says no and takes her to a doctor to make sure Cleo and the baby are in good health, again showing the closeness between them. Throughout the film it’s obvious Antonio has left Sofia and his children and during moments that he hurts Sofia she yells at Cleo and has outbursts aimed at her because she sees Cleo as the only thing in her life that hasn’t changed, she’s her constant. At one point in the film Cleo goes to find Fermin, finding him at his martial arts training. She confronts him about her pregnancy again and he threatens to beat her and the baby if she ever comes back. At this point in the film people versed in Mexican history have started to notice the details that reveal at what point in history the film takes place in and it’s confirmed in the traumatic moment when Cleo’s water breaks. 

This takes place when Cleo, Sofa’s mother Teresa, and the driver are at a furniture store shopping for a crib for Cleo’s daughter as they are nearing the due date. Outside of the building another student protest is taking place, these have been mentioned in small passing comments through the film, which then breaks into chaos as the paramilitary groups start shooting at the college and high school protestors. This reveals that the film has taken place surrounding El Halconazo (Dargis). This was a massacre that took the lives of nearly 120 protestors and never had justice served. The moment that Cleo’s water breaks happens when the riot breaks out and a couple runs in seeking help followed by what are assumed to be Los Halcones, one of them being Fermin. The trauma of seeing them kill the man who ran in and seeing Fermin causes Cleo to go into labor early, the riots block the roads and slow their drive to the hospital where Cleo gives birth to a stillborn baby girl. Sofia takes the children and Cleo on a trip to the beach to relax and get away from things, there she breaks the news that Antonio has left them. The next day while Cleo is left watching three of the children at the beach two of them are dragged out by the current and she goes in to save them despite not knowing how to swim. The family and Cleo share a moment where she admits she didn’t want the baby and they tell her how much they love her, making her a member of their family. 

Roma is a story of appreciation and the next film La Llorona is the opposite, a story of revenge. This film like Roma sees our heroine as Alma, an indigenous live-in maid who speaks Mayan-Ixil and goes to work for General Monteverde’s family after his indigenous employees quit admist his trail for the war crimes he committed thirty years prior. In La Llorona all the live-in servants are treated as lesser people by the upper-class family. They're looked down upon, chastised, and the indigenous women are referred to as ‘whores and prostitutes’ by the general’s wife Carmen as she blames indigenous women for her husband’s infidelity (Castillo).  Unlike the original legend, the movie takes La Llorona and turns her into a sympathetic character and gives us the real villain in General Monteverde. Enrique Monteverde is responsible for giving orders that led to the genocide of Mayan tribes and the brutal attacks on the people, the film opens with his trial where his conviction is overturned leading to uproar from the people that sends Enrique and his family into hiding in their lavish mansion (Robertson, “La Llorona Review: Not the Ghost Story You’re Expecting”). 

Enrique’s mental health is deteriorating and eventually scares off all but one of his servants which introduces us to Alma. She is a quiet, new servant who says she’s from the same village as Valeriana, the only servant who stayed, and immediately sets alarms off for Carmen as she sees her as another temptation for her husband. The entire family is wary of Alma aside from Valeriana and Sara, Enrique’s granddaughter, the latter of whom becomes very close to Alma. Throughout the film Alma is very obviously shown to be the ghost of La Llorona but isn’t portrayed as the child killing spirit from the legend. Instead, she’s a quiet, wide eyed young woman who seems to know everything about the other members. As the film progresses the protestors outside their home become louder and continue to demand that Enrique pay for the crimes he committed, eventually leading to the climax of the film where Sara and Alma are both missing. Enrique and his family are searching for them thinking Alma is attempting to harm Sara. Enrique finds who he believes to be Alma holding Sara under water in the pool, drowning her, and he shoots at her only to be restrained by his security guards followed by the reveal that he shot Sara in the arm. At that moment the ghosts of every indigenous person Enrique and his orders killed appear in their back yard, the chants of the protestors grow from outside the property walls. The family and guards bring a restrained Enrique into the home, the guards leave the room to secure the rest of the home, the family is left surrounded by candles and Enrique on the floor between them screaming nonsense demanding to be let go. In the finals moments of the buildup Carmen is taken over by Alma’s spirit and shown exactly what Enrique did to her all those years ago. She's put into Alma’s point of view and forced to watch and feel what she feels as Alma’s children are drowned by Enrique’s orders. In anger Carmen attacks and strangles Enrique while in Alma’s memory and once Enrique draws his last breath the audience is shown that Carmen did in fact kill Enrique, the ghosts disappear and the chanting stops. Alma has gotten her revenge. 

The film centers around the Guatemalan Civil War, Enrique’s character is a stand in for the actual dictator Efrain Rios Montt. This 36 year long civil war ended with 200,00 dead, 83% of which were Mayan (“Timeline: Guatemala’s Brutal Civil War”). This is seen as one of the biggest human rights violations in Central American history, thousands of innocent Mayan civilians were beaten, burned alive, killed, pregnant women had their stomachs cut open, and children were thrown into pits, this was used as Bustamante’s focus for his film as a reminder of Guatemala’s dark history (McDonnell).  

While these films are very different in tone, they’re similar in the main characters and setting. Both focus on indigenous women, Cleo and Alma, they each work for higher class families, and they take place during major political moments in their country's histories. While those similarities bring a common base, this is where they differ. Cleo unlike Alma is welcomed into the family she works for and is treated kindly by everyone, having freedom to go out and have a life outside of work. Alma is a lesser person to the family she works for, they have a distaste for indigenous people, and she can’t leave the home since it’s surrounded by guards and hundreds of protestors. Cleo isn’t actively a part of the protests happening in the story rather accidentally finds herself in the middle of a massacre. Alma on the other hand willingly goes to work for the Monteverde’s knowing that Enrique is responsible for the genocide of her people, although she does this with ulterior motives. The families each woman works for are also very different, for Cleo the family is very close aside from the father and they try to include her and interact with each other, Alma’s family is estranged, and all have disdain for one another aside from Sara who is just a child and the only one to befriend Alma while everyone else treats her as nothing more than a servant. 

Both films are worth the watch, each brings the topics of politics, indigeneity, and class standing into their stories and they do different things with them. Cuaron and Bustamante created films that surround important moments of history and while Cuaron made his to honor the woman who raised him, Bustamante did it to call attention to the travesty that still has consequences to this day. Films in Latin America that focus on indigenous characters are starting to become more common now and while they still face backlash from these countries because of colorism and the casta system, these films are the step in the right direction to telling more well represented stories and giving representation and opportunities to a wider range of people.