2015 Directed by Jayro Bustamante
María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel Maya, lives with her parents on a coffee plantation at the foot of an active volcano. She is set to be married to the farm's foreman. But María longs to discover the world on the other side of the mountain, a place she cannot even imagine. And so she seduces a coffee-harvester who wants to escape to the USA. When this man leaves her behind, María discovers her own world and culture anew.
Ixcanul Volcano, Volcán, 익스카눌, Ixcanul - Träume am Fuße des Vulkans, Το Ηφαίστειο, Vulcano - Ixcanul, O Vulcão Ixcanul, Volkan, Ішканул, 火山下的人生, 火山少女的愛愁
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thought i'd seen enough coming-of-age films about sexually curious Guatemalan pig farmers who live on the base of a volcano, but this one surprised me. always incisive and occasionally gripping.
Ixcanul is a slow burn, but it highlights a culture rarely seen onscreen and immerses through its careful, contemplative tragedy. Focusing on Mayan characters and told in the Kaqchikel language, Ixcanul is about people living on the side of a volcano. The mountain provides them with what they need, but also has dangers that threaten to ruin their livelihoods. Beyond the volcano lies unexplored worlds, perhaps the USA and Mexico, or freedom itself, or maybe just the cold. At the centre of Ixcanul is a young woman, locked into a world of expectations and traditions. Her sexuality becomes something to explore in secret, and when she becomes pregnant her family face social difficulties. Yet simultaneously she is considered magical and…
A young Guatemalan coffee plantation girl has her whole life mapped out, including a marriage to a man with money, but takes a risk by having sex with a plantation worker who tells her she can't get pregnant the first time they have sex. And she gets pregnant and he leaves and her life is in shambles. All I'm saying is if she would have seen the movie Terminator, she wouldn't have fallen for that one.
In the last few months, I watched Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamente's last two films so I wanted to see his first feature "Ixcanul". All three films are very different but they touch on social and political themes in contemporary Guatemala. This one did not disappoint and I continue to respect Bustamente's work.
Here he focuses on the hardships and exploitation of the Kaqchikel, the indigenous Mayan people living in the northwestern highlands, using first-time actors using their language. Maria (Maria Mercedes Coroy, also in his recent La Llorena) and her parents live in rural poverty, eking out wages from a local coffee plantation and living in the shadow of a volcano (Ixcanul - the title of the film). Maria is…
Que bonito ver algo que es de tu propio país. Me pregunto si a los gringos le pasa lo mismo, como que estan viendo una película en LA y dicen "wey esa es mi casa". Bueno algo asi me sentí "wey ese es el pacaya" (ni estoy segura si era el pacaya pero you get the point). Que feo que por medio de una película me este culturizando de mi propio país, pero lo tomaré como un wake up call.
"I feel like the volcano."
Ixcanul is a surprisingly perceptive coming-of-age tale about María, a young Kaqchikel Maya living in a remote Guatemalan countryside near an active volcano. Behind its coming-of-age form is an upsetting socio-political narrative concerning the frail side of modern Guatemalan society. The film contemplates the ever-existing gap between the indigenous people and the elite in terms of justice and opportunity, with the language barrier as the major player in the whole situation. It also echoes a statement about the consequences of the people's prevailing adherence to tradition, thanks to a system that fails to reach and equip the graces of modernity to all its inhabitants. Compared to his latest politically charged horror outing with La Llorona, Jayro Bustamante created a stronger force in this earlier work of his, whose foundation clutches more on firmer ground.
Soy yo o las actuaciones en kaqchikel fueron 161515253 veces mejor que las que eran en español? Maria Telon y Maria Mercedes Coroy WOW 👏🏼 Ame ver una producción de esta calidad narrativa y cinematográfica hecha en Guate 😭🙌🏼 De verdad que tenemos un país con tantos problemas y que mejor manera que usar el cine para abordarlos.. Gracias Jayro por abordar estos temas tan fuertes y desgarradores de la realidad del país de una manera tan artística y humana 👏🏼
Duele saber que esta es la realidad del país pero me reconforta ver que hay gente que esta hablando al respecto y (aun mejor) moviendo la industria de cine en GT para que se empiece a hablar de esto.
(This review is a part of a two-film post on Seattle Screen Scene, featuring both Ixcanul and 45 Years.)
Ixacanul opens on a young woman’s passive form and impassive face. Her name is Maria (María Mercedes Coroy), and her mother (María Telón) dresses her and then smooths, parts, and plaits her hair, securing a crown-like garland upon her head. The two Mayan women, alone together in their home, near a volcano, an ixcanul, in a remote region of Guatemala, both absorbed and silent in the exclusive intimacy of their shared activity, indicate that they inhabit a world with which they are familiar, and I am not. I guess, as I first look at them, that Maria is not quite happy…
Jayro Bustamante is one of my favorite current active directors.
His visual style, tone, and subject matter lend themselves to some harsh, cold stories that border on horror (Tremors is horror in everything but genre, and La Llorona is just straight up horror). Ixcanul, his debut, is no different as the exploration of one young woman's perilous journey into adulthood goes to show.
María Mercedes Coroy stars as our lead who does everything she can to have agency in her own life. Much like the pig slaughtered at the start of film, forced through rum, to impregnate another, she is being offered off to the plantation foreman as his fertile wife. Maria is told she is god touched and that…
55/100
A.V. Club review. A slow burn that ultimately erupts into no sorry this metaphor is truly lame. Point is the film is faintly dull for a while but accrues power as it goes along, with language barriers playing a surprisingly dark role in the late going.
