Written by Gabriel Serrano Denis
Current surges of unbiased horror on streaming platforms and competition circuits have made it in order that sure movies find yourself hidden within the shadows of important darlings. Not that the movies garnering consideration are undeserving of it, however the present panorama is such that the quantity of flicks accessible for consumption are inclined to bury equally-deserving movies underneath a pile of “content material”. On this context, the truth that Jayro Bustamante’s 2019 movie La Llorona stays so potent 5 years later is a testomony to the Guatemalan manufacturing’s maintain on viewers on the lookout for horror with a political bent.
Having discovered a house with area of interest horror streamer Shudder, La Llorona, a few former dictator and his household haunted by the vengeful ghosts of the previous, was a type of uncommon horror movies that discovered love with critics and horror followers alike. It even earned a spot in The Criterion Assortment’s ever-growing number of horror-specific DVD and blu-ray particular editions. With this pedigree, Bustamante returns with one other difficult political horror fable, this time leaning in the direction of darkish magical realism and the ghosts of newer atrocities.
Rita, which had its US premiere as a part of the 2024 Brooklyn Horror Movie Competition, is Bustamante’s love letter to the darkish aspect of fairytales that additionally presents itself as a political affront to the methods that proceed to fail younger victims of sexual abuse. Early on, Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz) instantly assures the viewer that this story is not going to finish like most fairy tales, particularly as a result of actuality gained’t allow it. As she arrives at a state-run facility for seemingly misplaced women, Rita catches glimpses of packs of younger women operating like wild beasts by means of the woods, eerie black-veiled ghosts, and is initiated violently into her personal group of kid angels.
Slowly, Rita navigates the power full of fairies, wolves, rabbits, angels, and specters, together with her anti-social and hard demeanor as instruments for survival. Nevertheless, these “creatures” show to be not way more than cast-outs and abused women in costumes befitting their particular ordeals. The true monsters, in spite of everything, are the guards and social staff (demons and witches) that additional abuse and victimize the kids. Quickly sufficient, Rita learns that the one method to survive and, hopefully, escape is to simply accept her half within the group and battle again in opposition to the oppressors. This contains some surprising moments and revelations of sexual abuse and intercourse trafficking taking place inside the orphanage partitions, which Bustamante handles with professional maturity regardless of the uncomfortable conditions the younger women put themselves in.
A kind of Pan’s Labyrinth meets The Shawshank Redemption, Rita separates itself from Guillermo Del Toro’s model of horror/fantasy by positioning the true and the unbelievable in the identical airplane. Rita’s world is all too actual, a undeniable fact that plagues the characters all through the entire movie. The unbelievable parts are handled as mundanely and matter-of-factly because the revelation that Rita has already been by means of two abortions on the age of 13. Bustamante, working from his personal script this time, blends supernatural horror with real-life tragedy deftly, utilizing the true story of the 2017 demise of 41 women at a Guatemalan orphanage because the catalyst for the pursuit of reality and justice.
The movie’s cinematography, by Inti Briones, is one other boon that mixes stark realism with a magical hue of strangeness and horror. Bustamante forgoes the elegantly composed photographs of La Llorona for a extra handheld and in-your face method. Nonetheless, Rita stays as hanging as La Llorona, with Briones taking full benefit of the power’s decrepit, darkish hallways as a lot because the densely wooded surrounding areas. The supernatural feels natural, and the natural is magically heightened. There’s an odd magnificence to the movie’s aesthetic, the rough-hewn and DIY nature of the colourful costumes clashing with the tough concrete of the orphanage, a visible signifier of excellent defiance that Bustamante and Briones conjure up fantastically.
A dedicated solid of newcomers does an admirable job of imbuing the characters with humanity and holding the extra out-there concepts grounded. Santa Cruz as Rita pulls off the tough job of presenting a tough and impenetrable exterior borne of years of abuse on behalf of her father whereas additionally providing glimpses of heroism and vulnerability as soon as acceptance from her angels arrives. Equally spectacular are Alejandra Vásquez Carrillo as Bebé and André Sebastián Aldana as “La Terca”, two fellow angels in search of escape and justice for all these imprisoned. Carrillo, an actress with Down’s Syndrome, is a breath of contemporary air to the standard representations of ostracized kids, bringing together with her an angle that’s integral to the story’s stark realism. Sabrina de la Hoz and Margarita Kenéfic return after collaborating with Bustamante in La Llorona, Kenéfic a standout as a “witch” and social employee whose crooked bodily efficiency matches her cruelty.
Nevertheless, regardless of its noble and powerful messaging, Rita’s characters sadly fall to the wayside because the movie pushes its rallying cry to the fore. After a phenomenal climactic second, the movie has to, essentially after all, attain the purpose during which the fairytale is destroyed by actuality. It’s a tragic and heartbreaking ending, which is foreshadowed purposefully from the start voiceover, however one needs Bustamante had used his script in a much less didactic method to categorical his rage and pleas. As it’s now, the movie’s final aim is to awaken the viewer’s conscience and shine a really potent and vital gentle at a tragedy that might be misplaced to time if it isn’t remembered and, extra importantly, avenged. Sadly, some clumsy staging and a basic lack of emotion in favor of political motion robs the movie of chew. And regardless of this, Rita is so heartbreakingly distinctive and visually hanging that its very existence enrichens the present style panorama. It’s a daring and particular Latin American story that wanted to be advised, and it continues to show that Bustamante is a filmmaker to comply with into all of the darkish passages he takes us by means of.
