Ixcanul 2015 (Central America)

Ixcanul (2015)

Film Trailer

Director, Jayro Bustamante.

Plot Overview

Ixcanul (volcano) follows the story of a young woman, Maria, and her indigenous community in Guatemala. Her family and friends pick coffee beans for a living. Maria’s family arranges a marriage for her with Ignacio, the overseer of the plantation. Maria becomes pregnant, however, with Pepe who then leaves to go to the United States. Maria’s mother, Juana, tries to help lose the pregnancy by jumping on the volcano, putting hot stones around her stomach, and drinking something that makes her vomit.  When Ignacio finds out what happened, he threatens to force her family off their land.

Throughout the movie, there have been snakes in their corn field, preventing them from growing corn. The father sets the field on fire to try to get rid of the snakes but they remain. The spirit guide leads Maria across the field in hopes that her power from her pregnancy would ward off the snakes but one of them bites her. Ignacio drives them to the hospital and has to translate for her family from their indigenous language into Spanish. The doctors and Ignacio tell Maria’s that the baby died. The doctors and Ignacio have Maria fingerprint a document for the expenses and funeral of the baby. Maria wanted to see the baby but they tell her it was deformed because of the venom of the snake. Maria digs up the baby’s coffin and instead of finding the baby inside, she finds a brick. The baby did not die in the hospital but Ignacio had sold it into adoption. The family is very upset about this but do not know how to get the baby back since they don’t speak Spanish and cannot communicate with the institutions like hospitals, government agencies, and funeral home. The movie ends the same way it began with the mother getting Maria ready for a special ceremony, but this time she will be married to Ignacio.

Ixcanul’s relationship with the Twenty First Century and Central American History

This film specifically follows the lives of indigenous people in a coffee picking village to underscore the legacy of colonialism in Guatemala. Throughout the history of Central America when settlers arrived to take land away from the Mayans and colonize the area there was an immediate and negative impact on Mayan  culture, religion, and economics. For the three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule, Central America is disadvantaged. Through this, there are indigenous people who  maintain their Mayan language, culture, and religion, unlike indigenous peoples in the urban areas. This also causes a gap in the education and status between indigenous people and non indigenous people throughout Central America. The director even recognizes his own privilege that he had opportunities that others did not because he is Mestizo or of mixed racial heritage, and speaks Spanish. Most immigrants to the U.S. come from the Northern Triangle of Central American which includes El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. The people persecuted in these countries seek asylum in the United States because they feel that they will be murdered if they stay in their home countries. Residents of the Northern Triangle flee their home countries because of food insecurity, extreme poverty, and violence.  Currently, President Trump has been tightening the southwest border of the United States, leading to a humanitarian crisis on the border with Mexico. El Norte, set in 1983 portrays the reality and harsh conditions of immigrating to the United States from Guatemala.

Bibliography:

“Fleeing for Our Lives: Central American Migrant Crisis.” Amnesty International USA, 29 July 2019, .

Perrin, David. “Ixcanul: An Interview with Director Jayro Bustamante.” Berlin Film Journal, 10 Dec. 2016, berlinfilmjournal.com/2015/02/ixcanul-an-interview-with-director-jayro-bustamante/.

Bermeo, Sarah. “Analysis | Could Foreign Aid Help Stop Central Americans from Coming to the U.S.? Here’s What You Need to Know.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 June 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/18/trump-administration-threatened-cut-foreign-aid-if-central-american-countries-dont-stem-migration/.

Genre

The genre of this film is art house or drama. Art house films are usually not created out of financial motivation and are usually presented at film festivals. This could also be considered a drama because of the emotional intensity of scenes. This genre is important because it breaks the colonial traditions of filmmaking.

In an article about legacies of colonialism in film related to Brazil, “The Aesthetics of Hunger,” Glauber Rocha encourages the use of violence as a way to break the constraints of colonization in art. He writes, “Cinema Novo teaches the aesthetics of violence are revolutionary rather than primitive. The moment of violence is the moment the colonizer becomes aware of the existence of the colonized. Only when he is confronted with violence can the colonizer understand, through horror, the strength of the culture he exploits.” (Rocha, 13). Rocha explains that through the use of violence, formerly colonized people can reclaim their art.

Central American Cinema Background

Luisela Alvaray explains that film informs the political through aesthetic means. It was nearly impossible for Latin Americans to earn a living solely through cinema production and film has become an essential way for Latin Americans to express social reform.  For example, Fidel Castro emphasized the importance of art as a force for social change in Cuba by creating the Cuban Film Institute.

As films were denationalized in the 1990s, a new type of film making was created, often called Third Wave Cinema. These films, portray the reality of life in Latin America with both its hardships and joys. Unlike the order/disorder/order restored Hollywood narrative, Latin American films reflect real perspectives on what life is like in Latin America. Alvaray explained that Latin American Cinema used to be dependent on the government for money to produce films but now that it is less dependent on the government for money, less films are being produced. Several organizations and festivals, like the Mercosur Film Market, have been created to promote films and their production in Latin America.

There has not been a lot of scholarly research focused on Central American cinema. This may be a result of lack of production in Central America and the fact that the larger film markets of the region are in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico

Bibliography:

Alvaray, Luisela. “National, Regional, and Global: New Waves of Latin American Cinema,” Cinema Journal, 47, Number 3, Spring 2008, pp. 48-65.

Stephen M. Hart, “Introduction to Latin American Film,”  A Companion Latin American Film, Tamesis Books, 2007, pp. 1-16

The Representation of the U.S. in the film

The United States is an important theme in most Central American cinema that we have viewed in History 437.. Maria’s lover, Pepe, leaves their village to go to the United States. He tells Maria that there are big houses with gardens, cars, electricity on all the time, peeled fruit, everyone speaks English, and there is lots of money. Maria wonders what America smells like and compares it to their village’s smell of coffee and the volcano. The U.S. seems like a utopia to Pepe and Maria. In the bar, the men discuss America and claim that white people will treat them bad but they treat “Negroes” much worse.

When sitting on the volcano, Pepe tells Maria about his plans to journey to the U.S. He will have to walk across a desert and swim across two rivers. He mentions that he will have to escape the “Migra”, who are the border patrol. Maria makes plans to accompany Pepe but he will not take her with him.

Pepe tells her that to the north of the volcano is the United States but in the next scene, Maria’s mother asks her what is north of the volcano and Maria answers, “cold weather”.

At the end of the movie, Juana tells Maria that her baby is probably already speaking English in the United States.

Production

The director created this film based off of a story a woman told him about the abduction of indigenous children in Guatemala.

Watch this interview with director Bustamante.

Casa Comal is a three year film and television school in Guatemala. It is supported by The International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba (EICTV). EICTV was founded in 1986 for aspiring filmmakers from Third World countries. It originally benefited from funding from the Cuban government. Rafael Rosal graduated from EICTV and started Casa Comal and the Icara Central American Film Festival in Guatemala as platforms for Latin American cinema. (Falicov, 56-57).

The production studio for Ixcanul was La Casa de Production. Director and writer Jayro Bustamante founded this with Marina Peralta in 2009 so he could produce films. Cinergia gave Bustamante eight thousand dollars to produce the film and he withdrew 30,000 euros from a French bank. The crew was voluntary.

Set locations

Ixcanul was filmed only in Guatemala. It had particular filming locations at a hospital in Amatitlán, Guatemala, the Pacaya Volcano, Escuintla, Guatemala, and the village of El Patrocinio, San Vicente Pacaya, Escuintla, Guatemala. The scenes in the village are constructions of buildings because people did not want them shooting the film in their homes. Ixcanul is the first film directed and written by Jayro Bustamente. Since then, he has written and directed Temblores and La Llorona. Bustamante is from Guatemala and grew up in the highlands where 80% of the population is Kachikel/Kaqchikel, one of the many indigenous communities in Guatemala

Bibliography:

Aguilar, Carlos. ‘Ixcanul’ Director Jayro Bustamante On the Strength of Mayan Women and Guatemala’s Indigenous Majority, Indiewire, 2015.

“Ixcanul.” IMDb, IMDb.com.

Perrin, David. “Ixcanul: An Interview with Director Jayro Bustamante.” Berlin Film Journal, 10 Dec. 2016,

“Guatemala Film Connections Filmstudies.” Guatemala Film Connections │ Inicio, guatemalafilmconnections.com/Filmstudies-59.htm.

“ESCUELA DE CINE CASA COMAL.” Escuela De Cine Casa Comal, escueladecinecasacomal.com/.

Betancourt, Manuel. “These Are the Top 25 Latin American Films of the Decade.” Remezcla, 14 Nov. 2019, remezcla.com/lists/film/best-latin-american-films-2010s/.

“About Us.” La Casa De Producción, 2 Mar. 2017, lacasadeproduccion.com.gt/en/about-us/.

Falicov, Tamara L. Latin American Film Industries. Bloomsbury on Behalf of the British Film Institute, 2019.

Stephen M. Hart ,“Introduction to Latin American Film,” from A Companion Latin American Film, Tamesis Books, 2007, pp. 1-16

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction,”

Betancourt, Manuel. “The Star of Guatemalan Hit ‘Ixcanul’ on Being Afraid She’d ‘Ruin’ the Film & Turning Down the Role.” Remezcla, 11 Aug. 2016,

Reception and Distribution

Recently there has been an important theme of LGBTQ cinema being brought forward in Guatemala, such as Temblores. Between this year and next there have been two films produced on these topics. Some still relate to similar migrant themes and or religious importance throughout.

There are a few challenges to making film in Guatemala. The director says there are not very many trained Mayan actors–he discovered Maria in an acting troup

On Rotten Tomatoes, critics rate a film either “fresh” with a bright red tomato or “rotten” with a green splat. The audience also has a chance to rate the film positively or negatively. Critics rated Ixcanul 100% fresh. The audience who are reviewing films through Rotten Tomatoes is an American audience.

Ixcanul received number 19 on a list of the 25 best Latin American films of the 2010s.

Ixcanul succeeds in breaking the colonial traditions of filmmaking.  For example, the film does not deliver a Hollywood happy ending. This film breaks the order/disorder/order restored narrative commonly found in Hollywood blockbusters first  made popular by D.W. Griffiths.Spence and Stam claim that the absence of the language of the colonized reflects the attitudes of the colonizers ).

Ixcanul is the first film to ever be made in Kaqchikel language. This means that many of the actors, like the lead actress, Maria Mercedes Coroy, are of Mayan descent. The actors are not professional actors like one would find in a Hollywood film. In an interview with Indie Wire, Bustamante explains that “Maria Mercedes is a student and Maria Telón is an actress and a saleswoman… Manuel Antún, the man who played Maria’s father, is a dentist, and Marvin Coroy, the guy who plays El Pepe, is a poet.” This film also breaks the colonial traditions of film by starring a female as the main character.

To learn more about Maria Mercedes Coroy, read Manuel Betancourt’s this interview with her on Remezcla, August 11, 2016.

Film festivals

Film festivals play an important role in promoting Latin American cinema. Ixcanul was first released at Berlin’s International Film Festival in 2015. It won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, the second most prestigious prize at that film festival. Since its release, it has won awards at over 23 different film festivals.

Bibliography:

Quora. “How Can I Become a Top Critic on Rotten Tomatoes?” HuffPost, HuffPost, 23 Oct. 2017,

“Ixcanul (2016).” Rotten Tomatoes, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ixcanul.

Betancourt, Manuel. “These Are the Top 25 Latin American Films of the Decade.” Remezcla, 14 Nov. 2019, remezcla.com/lists/film/best-latin-american-films-2010s/.

Justin Chang, “Tragedy Bubbles to the Surface of the Vivid Guatemalan Drama ‘Ixcanul’view:.” Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2016.

Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize, 2015, Berlinale.

Stephen M. Hart ,“Introduction to Latin American Film,” from A Companion Latin American Film, Tamesis Books, 2007, pp. 1-16

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction,”

Gender Representation

The Bechdel Test asks three questions on female representation in films: are there two or more women in it who have names? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something besides a man?

In Ixcanul, the named women include the main character, Maria, and her mother, Juana. The talk about several topics other than men, like the baby Maria is pregnant with and the snakes on their land.

Sexual violence is not included as a plot device in this film. This is a notable exception because most cinema about Central and Latin American includes of sexual violence, usually targeting the female characters.

Check out this link for more information on the Bechdel Test

 

PART II

Guatemalan Background

Throughout Latin American history there is an experience of colonization and exploitation of its inhabitants and that is no difference for the Central American country of Guatemala. Once the home of the Mayan empire, indigenous persons have been the backbone of agriculture since the introduction of Spaniards to the area. Spain held the area as a colony for three hundred years and have brought the themes that make a film like Ixcanul so important to depict what has happened and the impact of colonization on an area that bases its economy off of agriculture. Rigoberta Menchu who is one of the most famous accounts of indigenous experience in Guatemala has been able to bring her personal story and inform the masses. This includes the stories of the coffee people and their struggle of being exploited mostly due to speaking native languages.

Bibliography:

Elisabeth Burgos-Debra, editor, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (London: Verso, 1984)

John Charles Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire: A concise history of Latin America, W.W. Norton, 2011. Third edition Further background on Guatemala

 Transculturation and Religion

Transculturation in religion is defined as syncretizing process that maintains or strengthens selected indigenous institutions by adopting accommodative external forms.  This means that there are some common themes and things that are taken from both religions without completely forgetting the customs of either religion completely. In I, Rigoberta Menchu, she talks about how the people of her village would study the bible and see where it would relate to the mayan traditions and cultures. This showed how Catholicism has influenced the Mayans to embrace their own cultures and relate to the colonizer’s religion. This is an important tie to Ixcanul because they use different methods when they pray that include both Mayan and Christian influences.

At the start of the film, Maria’s mother prays to the spirits and elements, like the earth, wind, water, and volcano.

In this scene, Maria prepares to runaway with Pepe. She tells her mother that she is going to make an offering to the volcano. In their religion, they made sacrifices to the volcano to stay dormant and protect them.

Bibliography

Chasteen , John Charles. “Born in Blood and Fire.” Menchú RigobMenchú Rigoberta, et al. I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala. Verso, 1984.

Cook, Garrett, Offit, Thomas, “Pluralism and Transculturation in Indigenous Maya Religion.” Ethnology: An International Journal of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Vol 47, No 1 (2008).

Gender roles

Masculine culture is portrayed throughout the entire film in multiple different ways. Arranged marriage is still a customary event in Mayan culture. Maria is expected to marry a man of her parents choosing to gain status in the village and stability for their family.

Male authority is deferred to in many scenes. Whenever Maria was in opposition to a male in the film, she was never taken seriously. This occurs in the scene with Pepe when she wanted to leave for the US with him, with her parents when her child had died but she was not able to see the child before the burial, and also at the end when the father was convinced that she had birthed a boy and they were living a better life in America.

In the coffee picking industry men and women do the same work, however, the men are the ones who are able to earn positions of authority, like Ignacio in the film to manage plantations. There is not equal opportunity for women to thrive except in the home. Karen Viera Powers argues that pre Columbian indigenous women were much more equal to men than in Spanish society. It seems that gender inequality is a legacy of colonization.

Bibliography:

Menchú Rigoberta, et al. I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian Woman in Guatemala. Verso, 1984.

Campbell, Duncan. “Guatemala Babies ‘Sold to Highest Bidders’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 June 2000, internationalcrime.

United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women and the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

“Gender and Indigenous People, Briefing no. 1, February 2010,  

Karen Vieira Powers, Chapter One, “Pre-Hispanic Gender Roles under the Aztecs and the Incas,” from Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish America, 1500 to 1600,  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005, pp. 14 to 38.

Snakes in Relation to Religion

Throughout the film there were multiple instances where the characters were trying to rid the snakes that were crowding the land from being able to be cultivated. In Mayan culture, the uterus is seen to be similar to a coiled snake and produces fertility. This is both prevalent for humans and nature during the planting season. Snakes are an important element of both Mayan and Christian religion.

In the film, Maria falls to a snake bite that causes her fate in losing her child. This could be compared to the analogy of Eve falling into the temptation of the evil serpent in the book of Genesis. The snakes and Maria’s fertility are constantly intertwined. The fact that the movie was based off of a story about the abduction of children, there was another connection to the snake and Ignacio. He was the devil of the film in literal and figurative sense. He used his power of persuasion to convince Maria’s parents that he did not have anything to do in the child’s disappearance and was still to be trusted.

Bibliography:

Lennie. “Mayan Women and the Coiled Snake Headdress.” Ancient Origins, Ancient Origins, 2 Aug. 2017, www.ancient-origins.net/history/mayan-women-and-coiled-snake-headdress-008519.

Skinner, Christopher W. “The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized – By James H. Charlesworth.” Religious Studies Review, vol. 37, no. 3, 2011. (pg. 275).

More information on a Snake God in Mayan religion can be found here: https://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-americas/kukulcan-maya-0010355

Learn More

If you found this film and our analysis of it interesting, you might enjoy watching: Temblores (2019), set in Guatemala, about a family dealing with the struggles of change while one son realizes he is homosexual. Casa de los Babys (2003), set in Mexico, portrays women from the US waiting to adopt children from poor migrant families. El Norte (1984) set partially in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States where a set of siblings travel to cross the border in the US.  Men with Guns (1997), filmed in Mexico, depicts an urban doctor who travels the country looking for students he trained to work with indigenous populations ravaged by civil war. La Llorona (2019) located in Guatemala about the tale of the woman who haunts families in search of her children that she lost, also directed by Jayro Busamante.

Review of Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714839.2017.1298259

https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_eureca/2017/artsandsciences/8/ → mayan people

 

https://www.indiewire.com/2015/12/ixcanul-director-jayro-bustamante-on-the-strength-of-mayan-women-and-guatemalas-indigenous-majority-168343/ → interview w director

 

Annotated Bibliography:

Alvaray, Luisela. “National, Regional, and Global: New Waves of Latin American Cinema,” Cinema Journal, 47, Number 3, Spring 2008, pp. 48-65.

Alvaray explores the new waves of Latin American Cinema and how cinema is subject to social and economic changes. As Latin America transformed from state control of cinema to a less direct role with less funding, less movies were produced in Latin America. Multiple organizations were set up to encourage film production in Latin America like Motion Picture Association (MPA), Spanish Telefonica Media, Miravista, Ibermedia, and Mescour Film Market.

Córdoba, Amanda Alfaro. “Can María Speak?: Interpreting Ixcanul/Volcano (2015) from a Decolonial Perspective.” Studies in Spanish & Latin-American Cinemas, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, pp. 187–202., doi:10.1386/slac.15.2.187_1.

Cordoba dives into the voice of the indigenous people in the film. She first discusses the voices of subalterns, specifically Mayans in Guatemala, and how their voices aren’t heard. This story is based off of an account told to the director’s mother. She then explores the voices of Maria and Juana by how they are portrayed in the film. She emphasizes the importance of the mother-daughter relationship. Juana’s voice is clear and heard while Maria usually makes gestures or acts. However, these women are made vulnerable and are not heard by the government institutions that they interact with.

Stephen M. Hart ,“Introduction to Latin American Film,” from A Companion Latin American Film, Tamesis Books, 2007, pp. 1-16

Hart explains that Hollywood created a narrative built around an order/disorder/order restored. He explores international cinema, such as new-realism, new-wave cinema, the impact of WWII on cinema, and how it impacted the rise of Latin American film. Most importantly, Latin Americans started third cinema to decolonialize their cinema and narrative their colonizers had created. These films do not portray a picture perfect image of Latin America but one that expresses how life is lived.

Robert Stam and Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction,”

Stam and Spence writes about how the colonialism of Latin American led to their lack of representation. When Europeans thought of Latin Americans as savages or cannibals, they were portrayed in an unflattering light. New films help the audience identify with the colonized and recognize the patterns of prejudice.

Robert Rosenstone, “The Historical Film: Looking at the Past in a Postliterate Age,” in The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media, edited by Marcia Landy (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001) pp. 50-66.

Hart explores the different varieties of historical films, like drama, document, and experiment. He then explains how mainstream films versus experimental films construct a historical world. Mainstream films are the ones created by Hollywood which have a set beginning, middle, and end and put individuals at the center of the film. It dramatizes history. Experimental films are in opposition to the mainstream way of storytelling. It is a story of individuals and Latin Americans use experimental film to decolonialize their cinema.

Authors:

Haley McAllister and Macy Alexander

Edited by Kristen McCleary