"The Milk of Fear" is a Peruvian female film and the second feature film of Peruvian female director Claudia Yusa, which won the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear Award and the International Film Critics Fabisi Award. Best Picture and Best Actress (Magaly Solier) at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival. "The Milk of Fear" is full of magical realism unique to Latin America, highlighting the ideological restraint and imprisonment of the Peruvian people by the authoritarian dictatorship.
The story of "The Milk of Fear" is a bit bizarre, but not entirely out of touch with reality, and is something that can happen in China's backward rural areas. The heroine of the story is called Fasta, and she lives with her mother. After the two moved from the village to the small city of Lima, they lived with their uncle's family. When my mother was in Waifasta, during the reign of terror in Peru, when a guerrilla group attacked her hometown, she killed Fasta's father, raped her mother, and forced Fasta's mother to swallow and cut from her father's body. down the genitals. Since then, Fasta's mother has lived in fear, and such fear has been deeply instilled in Fasta's heart.
Fasta is a very strange person who never interacts with people, and communicates with her mother through singing. Fasta has a deep fear of the outside world and dare not walk outside alone. Every time she walks, she must walk close to the wall, because people in her hometown told her that there are wandering spirits lingering far from the wall. If you don’t walk close to the wall, the spirit will be captured by the wandering spirits. In fact, Fasta believed that his younger brother died early because his soul was taken away by the wandering spirit. For Fasta's strange behavior and thoughts, the uncle's family and neighbors believe that it is because Fasta drank her mother's "milk of fear".
Suddenly, Fasta's mother died, and the sad Fasta passed out in front of her uncle's family with a nosebleed. After her uncle sent her to the hospital, the doctor checked and found that Fasta had stuffed a potato into her vagina. The growth of the potato caused the deformation and inflammation of Fasta's uterus. The potato must be taken out as soon as possible. Fasta's uncle thought it was absurd, how could it be possible to stuff a potato, so he repeatedly told the doctor that the cause of Fasta's illness was "the milk of fear". The doctor scolded Fasta's uncle for a meal and asked Fasta to take out the potatoes during the follow-up visit.
Fasta put potatoes in her vagina because her mother had told her that a female neighbor in their hometown did just that, so she could keep her virginity. Fasta thinks this is a very good way, so she also uses potatoes to protect her virginity.
The uncle's family is not rich, and the upcoming wedding of the cousin will make the family shy, and there is no extra money to buy a coffin for Fasta's mother. And Fasta insisted on sending her mother back to her hometown for burial, carrying her mother's body from outside the hometown into the village just like her mother carried her when she was a child. Therefore, funeral expenses and shipping became a problem that Fasta had to solve. She had to obey her uncle's arrangement and help a female musician in the town. For Fasta, it took a lot of courage because she had a deep fear of outsiders and was afraid of walking alone.
The female musician lives in a large mansion with a wide garden outside. Fasta's main job there is to serve female musicians and help the gardener open the door after being identified. The female musician has recently faced a creative bottleneck. The concert is coming, but she still can't make up a decent piece. For this reason, the female musician even smashed the piano. By chance, the female musician heard the song that Fasta sang to soothe her nervous emotions. She felt it was very special and excellent, so she asked Fasta to sing again. However, Fasta can't sing in front of outsiders. For this reason, the female musician promises that Fasta will give her a pearl from the pearl necklace every time she sings a song. When Fasta finishes singing all the songs, You can take the entire string of pearl necklaces.
The gardener of the female musician is a silent honest man. Every time a female musician came, it was Fasta who opened the door for him. But Fasta was reluctant to look directly at the gardener's face, so every time he was asked to put his hand in front of the peeping window, confirm his identity through the palm of his hand, and then open the door after confirmation.
My cousin's wedding was imminent, and my uncle gave Fasta an ultimatum to bury her mother's body before the wedding, and even dug a pit in the yard while Fasta was away. As a last resort, Fasta had to bite the bullet and walked up to the female musician, plucking up the courage to sing with tears in her eyes. In order to prepare for the wedding, other female relatives could not come to take Fasta home, and Fasta was too afraid to walk outside alone. In the end, the gardener sent Fasta home. However, the gardener just followed Fasta silently and never took the initiative to talk to him. When he was about to get home, he also stood in the corner and watched silently until Fasta entered the door safely.
Potatoes caused Fastamo great physical pain, and she used scissors to trim off stems and branches that grew out of the body. However, she was reluctant to go to the hospital for surgery. At night, Fasta would hold her mother's wrapped corpse and sing her heart's words against her mother's face, but her mother not only did not respond, but also lost strands of hair on Fasta's hands.
Fasta sang more and more songs for female musicians, and on the scale, pearls moved one by one to Fasta's side. Fasta and the gardener also gradually became familiar with each other, and they began to talk to each other actively, and on the way home, the two changed from tandem to walking side by side. Even, Fasta will secretly hold a gorgeous, red flower in her mouth, waiting for the gardener behind the door alone. Just before the door was opened, Fasta threw the flower on the ground so that the gardener would not know what he wanted.
On the way home that day, the gardener took a handful of colorful candies out of his pocket and pinched them in the palms of his hands, and Fasta nervously wiped his hands on his skirt, then summoned the courage to stretch out his open palms. These candies were scattered all over the floor, and at the last moment, Fasta withdrew his hand, but still did not have the courage to accept this feeling.
Finally, on the end of the scale that belongs to female musicians, there is only one pearl left. Fasta rushed to the gardener and asked him why there were all flowers and plants in the garden, but no potatoes? The gardener asked her back, why are you always so afraid? Fasta said, I do! The gardener said coldly that in this world, except for death, which is unbearable, everything else is voluntary. I don't want to grow potatoes, that's what I'd like to do! Fasta was stimulated, she turned around angrily, and cried, "Aren't you afraid of being killed?" raped? The gardener felt a little guilty, and immediately shouted to the back of Fasta, potatoes are difficult to grow, and there are everywhere around.
The concert of female musicians begins. After grooming the female musician, Fasta sat alone in the dressing room and waited. Suddenly, she heard the piano sound of the female musician, and the note that jumped out was exactly the "Mermaid and the Musician" she sang. Fasta ran to the edge of the stage excitedly, hiding behind the curtain and looking at the female musician under the spotlight. The applause at the end of the performance continued. On the way home, the female musician sat excitedly in the passenger seat and talked to her son, who was driving, about the success of the concert. Fasta sat in the back seat alone and listened to the conversation between the two. She was also very happy. She couldn't help but say that they really liked it. So, the female musician asked her son to stop the car and rush Fasta out of the car. No one wants to be known that their creations are copied from a countryman. And Fasta could only be on the dark and open road, chasing the car and crying for the pearls he had not yet got.
The cousin's wedding took place amid the excitement. Fasta put on beautiful clothes and stood blankly amid the laughter of relatives and friends. That night, Fasta was so uncomfortable that she lay on the bed. Suddenly, my uncle rushed over and tightly covered her mouth and nose. Fasta struggled and inhaled hard. Uncle said, no matter what, you still want to live, you still want to breathe the air with all your strength. Uncle let go. Fasta rushed out the door immediately. She ran hard on the road, passed through the crowds of the market, entered the house of the female musician, picked up her pearls one by one on the ground, and then held them tightly in her hands. At the front door of the female musician, Fasta passed out. It wasn't until the gardener came to work that Fasta was found, and he held up Fasta's head, and Fasta opened his eyes and pulled the gardener's arm hard and said, "Take it out, take it out." So the gardener immediately carried Fasta on his back, walked all the way through the streets, and sent Fasta to the hospital. Yes, Fasta wanted to live, so she mustered up the courage to run down the street alone, to get back what was hers, and bravely told her loved ones that she no longer needed potatoes to protect her virginity . A woman has finally liberated herself from the fears of the past, from the superstitions of feudalism.
Fasta and his uncle's family rented a van and were going to take Fasta's mother back to their hometown along the long journey. However, when Fasta saw the sea on the way, she changed her mind. Step by step, Fasta carried her mother behind her back and walked to the side of the sea. She pointed to the vast ocean and heaven and earth. Compared with her hometown, which was closed and backward and full of painful memories, this was her destination.
Fasta returned to his uncle's house after burying his mother. Relatives and children called her out, saying that someone was looking for her at the door. Pushing the door open, Fasta saw a beautiful little flower standing in a flowerpot, and next to the little flower, two potatoes were buried. Fasta bent down and sniffed the flower deeply.
"The Milk of Fear" is a less complicated film. Although the style is somewhat magical and realistic, the message the director wants to convey and the way to deal with it are relatively clear and straightforward. This film should get a relatively large response in the West, but in China, it is a bit like watching a local rural film, and it is estimated that it will be difficult to obtain widespread praise. After all, distance produces beauty, too familiar, it is not beautiful. But in fact, it may be because the director of the film is a woman, so the texture of the film and the music behind it are delicate and gentle. Although the shooting method is relatively simple, the slow rhythm, the consistent narrative intention, and the various symbolic things buried in it make it hard to believe that it came from a Peruvian director who is not very experienced in filmmaking. On these points, "The Milk of Fear" can be regarded as a good film.
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