The first film from Guatemala to be submitted in the Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards, Ixcanul serves up a mix of documentary realism and fable-like drama set in isolated mountains. At the base of a dormant volcano, inhabitants of an impoverished Mayan village eke out a living harvesting coffee beans at a nearby plantation and farming inhospitable fields hewn out of the jungle. The parents of Maria (María Mercedes Coroy)—a beautiful, hard-working young woman—have arranged a marriage with the plantation foreman, but she has made her own plans to run off to America with a cocky worker her own age who talks big and drinks his wages away at the local dive bar. She seduces him to seal the deal, which has consequences that change everything for her. The feature debut of filmmaker Jayro Bustamante, this is a powerful portrait of traditional Mayan culture, where peasants live in huts without electricity or running water and speak their native Kaqchikel, unable to communicate with the Spanish speakers from the nearby city without an interpreter. The ordeal of Maria and her parents is harrowing and Bustamante presents it without sentiment or melodramatic flourish, focusing on their strength as he shows their plight in this primal, powerful, and rare portrait of a hidden culture. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Ixcanul
Kino Lorber, 91 min., in Spanish & Kaqchikel w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $29.95, Blu-ray: $34.99 Volume 32, Issue 3
Ixcanul
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