The Mouth of the Wolf

Francisco J. Lombardi's 1988 Peruvian film follows a military unit sent to a remote mountain village under the influence of the Shining Path. The soldiers cannot see their enemy; they do not know which side the villagers are on, and that uncertainty turns into rot inside the unit. The film defends neither the army nor the guerrillas. Its subject is how the fear of young men deployed against an invisible enemy turns toward civilians. The unit's commander accelerates that process, and the hardest scenes come from his orders. Addressing what was happening in Peru in the eighties this early and this directly was unusual in cinema. The film provoked debate in the country and counts among the important works about internal conflict in Latin American cinema. Who it's for: those interested in Latin American political cinema and narratives of internal conflict. Who it's not for: viewers who want to avoid scenes of violence against civilians; the film shows it directly and at length.