La Llorona

A film set in Guatemala. An old general is on trial. The charge is genocide; he is said to be responsible for what happened years ago in the mountain villages. There are witnesses in the room and their testimony runs long. The verdict is given and then annulled. The general goes home. The house is large and in the middle of the city. A crowd gathers at the gate; it does not disperse for days, it shouts, and the family cannot go out. The household thins. The staff leave one by one; only an old woman remains. Then someone new arrives. Alma is quiet, young, and where she came from is unclear. From there the film turns into a slow horror. The sound of water is heard at night, the general cannot sleep, and the women of the house begin having the same dream. What the narrative is interested in is not a ghost but denial: the folk story it draws on is a weeping woman who lost her children, and the film joins that to the country's own history. There are few scares and they are quiet; the tension comes more from the silence inside the house and the shouting outside. María Mercedes Coroy plays Alma. Sabrina De La Hoz and Margarita Kénefic are in the cast. Jayro Bustamante wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes films that join political history to horror. Who it is not for: anyone expecting classic horror; the film is very slow and takes its effect entirely from waiting.