cinema moderne – The Concordian

The film depicts the unheard voices of Guatemalan women that were victims of the civil war

Nuestras Madres, directed by César Díaz, a Belgian-Guatemalan film director who’s worked on multiple documentary films, takes place in Guatemala in 2018 during the trial of soldiers who started the civil war. Nuestras Madres won the Caméra d’Or at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

The Guatemalan Civil War, which spanned from 1960 to 1996, was a war between the Guatemalan government and leftist groups due to unfair land distribution. The war led to the killing and disappearances of many civilians, but also the genocide of Mayan communities.

Ernesto (Armando Espitia) is a young anthropologist from the Medical-Legal Foundation in Guatemala City working on the massacre of civilians and guerrilleros from the country’s civil war. One day, he is acquainted with a Q’eqchi’ woman named Nicolasa (Aurelia Caal) seeking his help to exhume the body of her husband, Mateo, who was tortured and shot by soldiers.

In one scene, Nicolasa shows Ernesto a picture of guerrilleros. Ernesto is shocked as he recognizes the face of his father, who disappeared during the war. He goes to his desk and comes back to her with a picture of his father as he tries to compare both faces from the photographs.

This leads Ernesto to embark on the search for his father and strikes a need to understand his disappearance. In the end, Ernesto will be surprised to know the untold story of his mother Cristina (Emma Dib) who kept her experience during the war secret from him.

Díaz did a remarkable job in illustrating stories that depict realities that many Guatemalans lived throughout the civil war. The movie is a testimonial to the many Indigenous women who suffered during the civil war as they were the main target during the early 80s.

The movie is filled with sincerity. Through the characters, one can feel the pain and the suffering that has lived inside the victims for so long.

A poignant scene from the film occurs when several Mayan women from Nicolasa’s village decide to give their testimony about the war to Ernesto, while he visits to dig up Mateo’s body. A series of women’s faces are then shown on the screen, each of them having a different portrait but sharing the same pain for several years. They were once living in silence; now, they are heard.

Their faces represent the many people who endured the atrocities of the war. They allow people from around the world, who’ve experienced similar events, to have the possibility of connecting with this community.

Díaz’s work is a recognition of the people who lived through the war and who are still healing from it. The movie serves as an opportunity for the audience to understand the way in which these events can be traumatizing.

Many viewers may be unaware of the Guatemalan Civil War. Nuestras Madres gives people the opportunity to find out how a war that is little spoken about can leave a country with disturbing memories and many suffering in silence.

Nuestras Madres is playing at Cinéma Moderne on 5150 St-Laurent Blvd. The next viewing will be on Oct. 3. Tickets are available online.

Elem Klimov’s historical epic is a deranged and frightening showcase of human evil

A common criticism aimed at modern war films is their general disregard for historical accuracy. Films like Pearl Harbor or Enemy at the Gates, while entertaining, are often embellished or glamorized in order to make the subject matter more palatable for mainstream audiences. The fact of the matter is that war is messy. Lives are lost, cities are destroyed and soldiers and civilians are left with lasting psychological effects. Rarely will a film seek to capture the absolute horror of combat in a truthful and authentic manner. There are, of course, some exceptions, one of which is the 1985 Belarusian film Come and See.

Set during the Nazi occupation of Belarus, a landlocked Eastern European country between Poland and Russia, Come and See tells the story of a young teenage partisan named Flyora. Against the wishes of his mother, Flyora joins the Soviet resistance movement and soon becomes entangled in a hellish conflict.

Director Elem Klimov has stated that in making this film, he wished to properly convey the sensory experience of war to the viewer. To achieve this, the director consulted Soviet writer Ales Adamovich to collaborate on the film’s script. Adamovich fought as a partisan during the Second World War, and his book I Am from the Fiery Village was used as the inspiration for the film’s events.

The director’s characterization of Come and See as a sensory experience is an apt one. Whether it be the terrifying reverberation of a dropped bomb or the ominous droning of fighter planes circling the sky, the film’s sound design shakes you to the core. The imagery is similarly harrowing, and the camera will often linger on disturbing scenes, amplifying feelings of discomfort. Fans of Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsummer will find these techniques very familiar. The result is an overwhelming and visceral journey into the depths of depravity that will affect you profoundly.

Visually, Come and See is distinct for its frequent use of POV shots. This was a purposeful decision made by Klimov and cinematographer, Aleksei Rodionov, to place the audience at the center of the events unfolding. The close-ups of the actors directly addressing the camera are incredibly impactful and make the characters’ anger, fear and anguish feel all the more real. It’s a reminder that war is a human conflict first and foremost, and that there were very real people affected by the ramifications.

As the film progresses, we watch as protagonist Flyora gradually undergoes a stunning visual transformation, with his hair turning grey and his face becoming lined with wrinkles. Flyora’s transformation is not only a physical delineation of the effects of war, indicating the immense stress he is undergoing, but it also represents his loss of innocence. Flyora begins the film as an eager boy ready to join the Soviet resistance, but by the end he is left battered and emotionally scarred, robbed of his youth.

The film went through numerous delays during production, with the USSR’s State Committee for Cinematography, at one point rejecting it, believing the film promoted an “aesthetics of dirtiness.” Nearly 35 years later, Come and See has garnered a reputation among critics as being one of the greatest and most accurate depictions of war ever put to film. It is a haunting representation of the indelible effects of war and an assessment of mankind’s capacity for evil. It is a gut-wrenching watch from start to finish, but one that should absolutely be seen.

Come and See is playing at Cinema Moderne as part of their “M: Les Maudits” Series dedicated to cult and genre classics. Screenings take place on Feb. 28 at 9 p.m. and March 8 at 7:15 p.m. Tickets are available online or at the box office. For more details visit cinemamoderne.com