Madeinusa

A small village in the Andes. Once a year there is a period from Good Friday to Easter in which, by the village's belief, God is dead and sees nothing. Which means there is no sin. For those hours the village suspends its own rules. Madeinusa is fourteen and will play the leading part in that year's ceremony. In the same days a man arrives from the city and has to stay because his car breaks down. Claudia Llosa writes and directs. It is her first feature. With her next film, The Milk of Sorrow, she won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival. The ceremony in the film is invented; there is no practice of that name in Peru and the director built it as a device. The production was argued over in Peru for that reason, with criticism that it misrepresents Andean people. The subject is who grants permission. In the village the same person sets the rules and lifts them: Madeinusa's father, who is also its head. The man from the city is not built as a rescuer; the narrative judges him too, and the last section shows that plainly. The visual language is strong: the coloured costumes, the mountain landscapes and the ceremony are what stay in the memory. Who it is for: viewers who follow Latin American cinema and drama on anthropological ground. Who it is not for: the subject is uncomfortable, the representation is contested, and the narrative moves slowly.