The Milk of Sorrow

A strikingly beautiful and unusual allegory for a country coping with pain, it's about a girl who believes she has been cursed. Magaly Solier is superb as Fausta in the lead; not a lot of dialogue, but her fear and quiet intensity burns in her eyes. The cinematography is just gorgeous, as is the gentle score (Fausta and her mother's made-up songs play a major role in the storytelling as well). A very interesting look at Peruvian culture as well as an intriguing, subdued psychological drama.

For a European viewer, the film is a culture shock, and the gradual discovery of the faraway Peruvian civilisation is paralleled in the slow revealing of the central character, a beautiful but shy teenage girl. The camera frequently shoots her head-on in varying degrees of close-up, a very intimate technique which also amplifies the tension in several scenes. It's nicely-shot, well-acted, and powerful in a restrained way, but ultimately its semi-magical exoticism is the film's trump card.

La actuación de Magaly Solier es impecable, los picos del guión son increíble está muy bien redactada la película. La fotografía me pareció brillante, arriesgada en algunos casos pero funciona muy bien.

"If you accurately described each scene, you'd have a book of poetry. That's how detailed and vivid are The Milk of Sorrow's rhythms."

Llosa's film balances style and content perfectly. Every shot has it's own life, it's own purpose in the structure. La teta asustada might seem rather slow, but the pace is always consistent and reflects not only the personality of the protagonist, but also the peruvian state of mind in relation to their violent past. The film continues to reflect the modern day Peru by contrasting the old traditions with the new culture. The ancient quechuese songs are intertwined with modern phenomena.

A nice - but sadly unforceful - film. Pretty forgettable.

Milk of Sorrow is filled with vibrant, inspired imagery, with some of its greatest scenes with little or no dialouge. Things get a little weighed down by symbolism at times, but there is a life in this film that's extremely refreshing.

I love all the little things the film does in depicting culture, class differences, personalities, etc. I also like the film's general style: Contemplative but always engaging. I don't really understand the main character, though, and that makes it hard to get fully behind it.

Viewed January 30, 2017.

It's a film filled with an amazing cinematography, which is almost a character in the plot. Claudia Llosa can't sustain the powerful first minutes through the whole picture though.

90 for a drama set in the real slums of Lima and with a Grey Gardens type of bourgeois mansion, and for a boat in the desert. Solier seems like an alien supermodel planted in the midst of the wonderful non-actors, but her silence is captivating.

one gets the sense that the filmmaker cares about her project, and that it perhaps strongly relates in some way to her personal experiences, but that she doesn't quite have the skill to express these emotions and ideas with power or lucidity. it's about a woman whose mother died after a life of hardship, and her attemps to scrap up enough money to bury her in a 'dignified' manner, so it has some nice, reflective moments, but the technique, while not overly poor, is just not very interesting.

My ★★★★★ review of The Milk of Sorrow on Letterboxd https://boxd.it/5P6uMv

4 Nisan 09, 28. ist. film fest. & 16:00 | Yeni Rüya & festivalin ilk gununde, festivalin en basarili filmi olabilir. pek basarili bulmayan elestirmenlerin aksine, simgesel anlatimi ve peruya ozgu atmosferiyle unutulmasi guc bir film. hafizama derin bir sekilde kazindi. 'Unutulmaz' bir deneyim.

"The legacy of sexualized violence is the chief generational inheritance in Claudia Llosa's incisive, carefully observed Golden Bear-winner." - Andrew Schenker

What was most memorable about this for me was the outstandingly gorgeous mise-en-scene, with the most dazzling use of color I've seen in years. I loved how the main character's thoroughly slow movements was reflected in the tempo of the film. Has a surprising amount of humorous moments as well.

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Behind the facade of a beautiful young woman is a frightened girl virtually crippled by extreme ignorance. This movie takes place in a very poor community, rich in tradition. Magaly Solier is cast as a mostly somber, single dimensional character which severely limits her performance. Also, the annoying subtitles frequently appear only as a flash. The story is not particularly noteworthy and the writing generally lacked enough range of expression.