The Old Ways
This is not the horror film I expected it to be. It's about ten times better.
It's about Cristina, a journalist who lives in Los Angeles, but who was born in Veracruz, who goes back to work on a story in Veracruz on folk magic and who gets in far deeper than she expected. So yes, it's kind of folk horror. And also it's not going to lean on your typical folk horror tropes in a way where there's nonstop darkness. Or deeply offensive stereotypes either. The movie takes breaks from emphasizing the awfulness of the situation, but only to build everything back up (holy shit the tension in this film, and it shows the humanity of all the characters. There are no unsympathetic, Heart of Darkness-style natives here.
The movie leaned on syncretic Catholic/Mexican faith healing (there may be a better way to describe it, but I don't know it), family connections, exorcisms, psychic surgery, and sympathetic magic. The walls of the set were covered in symbolism that looked like the drawn version of milagros. It was fucking gorgeous.
The captions actually said that the bruja spoke Nahuatl, one of the main language of the Aztecs. And so far as I know, it's not a dead language? I am not an expert! But I love when captions actually reflect a real language, not "speaks native tongue" or "speaks foreign tongue."
There was also a decent amount of Spanish spoken, thankfully, slowly and clearly enough that my very non-native, high school-educated self could parse at least some of it. With captions. But I found it realistic and appreciated it, because that made sense for a movie that took place in Veracruz. However, Cristina had forgotten most of her Spanish, thank goodness for me, so I was able to understand most of it without watching it as a captioned film. (I do that, but also, hey, I liked the mix of languages.)
ANYWAY. It was a spare 90 minutes, which was a relief to have something short for once, and every single scene tied into something later. It was a masterful bit of storytelling.
In short, I saw a bad review, don't listen, this film was amazing. I don't get scared by horror films and this one stuck with me. This entry has been cross-posted to Dreamwidth (
comments). Comments are welcome on either post.
It's about Cristina, a journalist who lives in Los Angeles, but who was born in Veracruz, who goes back to work on a story in Veracruz on folk magic and who gets in far deeper than she expected. So yes, it's kind of folk horror. And also it's not going to lean on your typical folk horror tropes in a way where there's nonstop darkness. Or deeply offensive stereotypes either. The movie takes breaks from emphasizing the awfulness of the situation, but only to build everything back up (holy shit the tension in this film, and it shows the humanity of all the characters. There are no unsympathetic, Heart of Darkness-style natives here.
The movie leaned on syncretic Catholic/Mexican faith healing (there may be a better way to describe it, but I don't know it), family connections, exorcisms, psychic surgery, and sympathetic magic. The walls of the set were covered in symbolism that looked like the drawn version of milagros. It was fucking gorgeous.
The captions actually said that the bruja spoke Nahuatl, one of the main language of the Aztecs. And so far as I know, it's not a dead language? I am not an expert! But I love when captions actually reflect a real language, not "speaks native tongue" or "speaks foreign tongue."
There was also a decent amount of Spanish spoken, thankfully, slowly and clearly enough that my very non-native, high school-educated self could parse at least some of it. With captions. But I found it realistic and appreciated it, because that made sense for a movie that took place in Veracruz. However, Cristina had forgotten most of her Spanish, thank goodness for me, so I was able to understand most of it without watching it as a captioned film. (I do that, but also, hey, I liked the mix of languages.)
ANYWAY. It was a spare 90 minutes, which was a relief to have something short for once, and every single scene tied into something later. It was a masterful bit of storytelling.
In short, I saw a bad review, don't listen, this film was amazing. I don't get scared by horror films and this one stuck with me. This entry has been cross-posted to Dreamwidth (
comments). Comments are welcome on either post.