In the eye of the society Fausta is sick. She took over fear and impotence from her beloved mother, who had been raped as a young pregnant woman during the Peruvian terror period in years 1980-1992. By having drunk her mother’s milk, Fausta inherited loads of pain and weakness sealed by the social approval and resulting from the fact of being a victim. Not only the victim of masculine dominant position but the society’s culturally confirmed blindness. Indeed, the trauma inscribed in the girl’s soul is even more profound because of the social silent persecution than it would be if left alone and not raked up.“The Milk of Sorrow” brings an extraordinary story of a woman who despises her overwhelming fear but cannot find enough strength to fight her innate inability to overcome herself. The path she finally chooses gives a glint of hope to the dark meanders of Fausta’s psyche. Still, the whole narrative is very carefully woven by Claudia Llosa, the director. She takes every possible measure not to turn her picture into an unhealthy, hideous and exhibitionist psychological horror. Nevertheless, any joyful gleam becomes eventually strangled due to the wariness not to run sentimental.
In order to avoid the fate of a victim, Fausta inserts a potato into her vagina. It may sound perplexing or ridiculous even but to her it is perfectly innocuous – only abomination can fight abomination, she says. But Llosa plucks up her courage to continue the chosen plotline and to complete the story in subtle, metaphorical tones accompanying a very feminine and soft look at the protagonist. Fausta’s mother death, death of a person who provided her both with fear and sense of security, pushes the young woman towards liberating herself from the irons of historical and internal limitations. The distance she covers on her journey makes “The Milk of Sorrow” not only sagacious but simply touching and thought-provoking.
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