Austinist Film Review: Madeinusa
Having just recovered from the chocolate bunny/Peeps induced haze that characterizes the beginning of the Easter season in los Estados Unidos (the United States to the gringos), we found Claudia Llosa's first feature film depicting the religious festivities of the indigenous Peruvian town “Manayaycuna” to be much more shocking than our cotton-tailed-capitalistic-glut could ever hope to be.
We are introduced to Madeinusa (pronounced “Mah-daya-noosa” and played luminously by Magaly Solier), the charming daughter of Cayo (Juan Ubaldo Huamán), the town's Mayor, as she is preparing alongside her incredibly jealous sister Chale (Yiliana Chong) to compete for the title of "Miss Virgin Manayaycuna", an honor bestowed upon the most beautiful, and of course virginal, girl in the town; whoever wins is to ring in the bacchanalian fiesta after the fold-up Jesus (totally creepy, btw) has been removed from the cross and laid to rest. For three days there is no sin, as God is officially dead until Easter morning and cannot see what they are doing in public or behind closed doors, which includes but is not limited to gluttonous/drunken feasting, thievery and incestuous relations.
It is during Madeinusa’s “coronation” that we meet the aptly named Salvador (Carlos Juan de la Torre), the “other” who has stumbled upon their remote village after the transport from Lima to his mining job could not cross a swollen river. He is promptly thrown in jail, for the town cannot risk an outsider witnessing this most holy, and sinful, celebration. Madeinusa, having a penchant for all things foreign, takes a shine to Salvador and quickly bewitches him with her beauty and vulnerability. She begs him to take her to Lima to find her runaway mother and believes that because Salvador has light eyes and her name on his shirt tag that he must be her salvation from this dreadfully crooked town. Naturally, nothing is ever that easy, and what unravels in the midst of this very confused celebration is nothing short of sinister.
Llosa manages to capture the mystique of Peru (albeit, through a fictional Peruvian town) while also gingerly pointing out the detriment that a western sensibility can have on indigenous peoples. Perhaps if Christianity had never been introduced to the little town of Manayaycuna, then there would be no debaucherous festival, and no chance for people to casually sweep their wrongdoings under the very broad mat of ceremoniously forgiving religion.
Madeinusa is quite a beautiful film, shot masterfully on high-def digital video by Raúl Pérez Ureta, accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful score care of Selma Mutal. It originally premiered in North America at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema.
Madeinusa
Monday, April 23rd
Regal Metropolitan Cinema, Theater 14
7pm, $7
[Tickets]
