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The Milk of Sorrow refers to the belief in Peru of the passing of a pregnant woman's suffering to her infant through her breast milk. Fausta is subjected to the violence of the military and the Shining Path radical group during the unrest of the 1980s

Fausta is a poor woman living in the mountains of Peru whose mother has died and because she cannot afford a burial, she puts her under a bed with a wedding dress on top of the dearly departed mom. Fausta was told repeatedly as a child growing up, of her mother's gang rape. She was never sure who her father was. As a result of the trauma, Fausta has inserted a potato into her vagina as a protection against rape; I am not making this up.

Fausta is hired by a wealthy pianist to work as a servant. The employer hears her singing songs learned from her mother. She offers her a beads from a broken necklace, but when the woman repeats the music at a concert and receives applause, she fires Fausta without giving her the pearls promised. Magaky Solier plays Fausta in a very subdued, low key manner, which fits the cold and dark tone of the film. The subject matter is grim, but it is based on reality, so expect ninety four minutes of a sad but compelling story.

Fausta, the young Peruvian of Indian extraction, is suffering from a strange malady. When taken to a clinic to be examined, the doctor examining her, determines she has a growth in her vagina, he compares it to having a potato growing up inside her. The uncle explains to the doctor it is a condition deemed to be 'the milk of sorrow', something that was passed from her mother as she breast-fed Fausta when she was an infant. Many women were violated by the rebel groups that preyed on the Indian communities. In order to prevent being violated Fausta is carrying a potato in her vagina, something the science man cannot begin to imagine.

As the story begins, we see her with her mother who is singing a strange song, in Quechuan. Nothing seems to indicate she is suffering from an illness, but as the singing stops, the lady dies. Fausta is shocked when she realizes what has just happened. After accepting the fact about her mother, she must bury her. The uncle has already started to dig a spot in back of the house to serve as a tomb. Fausta does not have a lot of money. A visit to the undertakers prove to be useless, for she cannot afford to even buy the cheapest kind of funeral. In spite of that, Fausta and the women relatives, prepare the body by wrapping it in a sort of a shroud.

With the problem still at hand, Fausta is engaged as a maid in the home of a lady pianist. Her instructions are not to let any strangers in the house. The place is adjacent to what seems to be a public market. Fausta, a shy woman is amazed by what she finds in the fancy home, but she never gets close to the lady of the house. The breaking of a string of pearls, brings the maid to help the lady, who promises to give Fausta the pearls, eventually. The only person that is closer to the girl is the gardener, a man that, at times ogles the young girl with more than necessary, but nothing happens between them.

We witness a few garish weddings happening at the compound where Fausta's uncle lives. The family makes extra money by preparing these weddings, catering them, and providing entertainment. Sometimes Fausta helps serve the guests. After Fausta gets the pearls, her desire to bury the mother comes a possibility. We watch her and the relatives as they travel to a desert near the Pacific. Fausta knows exactly where will be her mother's resting place. The final shots of the film are full of symbolism. Fausta finds a small pot where two potatoes have flowered into a small plant.

Claudia LLosa, the Peruvian creator of this film, sets her film among the poor classes in a Lima suburb populated by the destitute. The place is not a ghetto, by any means, the only thing in common with that, would be the poor housing where the people in the story live. The area is located in hills with steep stairs that are used by the locals to come to town. Fausta is a symbol of the oppressed classes by representing a small part of that culture. Ignorance and superstition are rampant among the population, where even a doctor is questioned when it is evident Fausta has something that will lead to a bigger problem if not treated properly.

In Magaly Solier, Ms. LLosa has found a girl that personifies the type of individual she is supposed to be. Not having seen this actress before, or for that matter, any of the cast, seems to be a triumph for the director in getting the results she wanted to present. The character of Fausta is an enigma to most viewers. She is an aloof presence in the film. It is through her eyes the story is seen.

Natasha Braier, the cinematographer captured the dreary locales in which the film is set with somber reverence. The music is by Selma Mutal, relying in the type of musical influence from the group at the center of the story. Ms. LLosa's film is highly feminine, showing an innate talent for great things to come.

The film begins with a horrifying story of rape and violence told through the song of an elderly woman who lays dying on her bed. She describes her horrific experiences during the years of the conflict in Peru between Sendero Luminoso, a left wing guerrilla group, and the Peruvian government. Though she has lost much in the conflict, including her husband whose emasculation and murder she describes in her song, she has left behind a daughter, Fausta, who becomes our protagonist. Fausta and her family do not have money to bury her mother or return her body to their village, so Fausta accepts work in the home of a wealthy white pianist. Fausta and her family are indigenous, and live in poverty in Lima, Peru where wealth, class, and race are all still intertwined. Fausta shares her mothers penchant for composing songs and her boss, who is struggling to complete a piece by her recital date, encourages Fausta to sing for her. When Fausta finishes her song, the boss performs it to a standing ovation in a packed theater. When tries to have her work acknowledged she is left abandoned on the dark streets of Lima, a terrifying fate for Fausta who has a crippling fear of men and is afraid of being assaulted like her mother was.

What Claudia Llosa has done perfectly here is capture the undertones of race, sex, and class that define so much of most modern societies. Fausta fears rape and this fear is especially valid given that she is an indigenous woman. If Fausta were not both indigenous and a woman, the threat of rape or any other form of violation would not be so understandable. Native people in Peru are often limited by a governmental/societal system that not only devalues them, but actively targeted them in the recent past. Though Fausta's fears stem from the past treatment of indigenous woman in Peru, her boss's duplicity is a product of a modern social structure that has not changed too drastically from previous decades. This is the context that makes her boss's strong reaction to her quiet comments so powerful. How dare Fausta, a poor indigenous woman, try to take any credit for her own work? Fausta attacked Peru's system of societal system by simply acknowledging it, when quiet acceptance of the creative theft was the expectation. In La Teta Asustada, Llosa displays the two extremes of oppression. The first being violence, and the latter silence.

I had some really big expectations for The Milk of Sorrow. I mean, when was the last time a Peruvian motion picture, a movie made in my country by filmmakers from my country won such a prestigious award as the Golden Bear? I expected this film to be something really special, something that could make an impact in me and, fortunately, most members of the audience in the packed theatre I found myself in. The subject matter was undeniable interesting and full of possibilities, and director Claudia Llosa could undeniably use this movie to try to affect her audience both emotionally and intellectually.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. I went with three friends. None of us really enjoyed the film. The rest of the audience? The best description I have of the expressions in their faces when the end credits started to roll is the following: "wtf?" Some of them even left early or the moment the credits started, not even waiting to see how had directed or performed in the film. As much as it saddens me, The Milk of Sorrow is proof that not only "artsy", independent movies are masterpieces, and that one doesn't always have to agree with the members of a jury giving a supposedly prestigious award.

The thing about The Milk of Sorrow is that it's got a premise, but that's it. No story. No narrative. It almost seems as if Llosa wanted to start something but didn't know how, and instead preferred to chronicle the life of her young protagonist. This might seem all right, but all that we're doing is witnessing the way she lives and deals with her problems. The movie goes nowhere. We know she's afraid of going outside, of being alone; we know she's got a potato inside her vagina acting as some kind tampon, and that she believes in the "milk of sorrow" disease. We've got issues, but nothing else. The film almost seems like a documentary in that there's very little narrative to speak of, and that it seems more concerned in watching these characters instead of making the audience sympathize with them.

Magaly Solier is not a bad actress. Although I didn't enjoy Madeinusa that much either, she was pretty good in it, but here she's wasted. It's not that she gives a bad performance, it's that her character is poorly written. How can one sympathize with her and her situation when Fausta has virtually no personality? She almost seems like a zombie walking through the world, barely talking and barely expressing herself. I know there are people like that, and I know she's supposed to be traumatized and fearful, but that doesn't mean she's stopped being a human being. She is a woman, and Llosa is supposed to make the viewer believe in the fact that she's a real woman. But this doesn't happen. I liked when she sang – it's not only a great cultural thing, but it also gave a little characterization to Fausta – but I hated the way she was underwritten.

I know many people will say I didn't get the movie, and that's why I didn't like it. Well, I must say I actually got it, that's the point. Besides, there's not much to get. It's not a terribly complex film, which is good. It's a psychological and sociological analysis of the trauma that these people experienced due to Sendero Luminoso and the armed forces, and the beliefs they have. It's a very interesting cultural study and it all feels real because it is, but that doesn't mean it's a very good film. Maybe if it had been done in the form of a documentary it would have worked better, but as a supposed narrative, it doesn't really flow because there's no plot to speak of and characters are boring. There are themes and ideas, to be sure, but does that mean it's got to be an amazing picture? Technically, the film's really good, I guess. Unlike other Peruvian productions, it doesn't look as if the film was shot with a video-camera. The 35 mm film does the movie a lot of good, giving it a very dreamy, serious look. It's all very realistic, but at times it's very beautiful too. Llosa's slow-moving, sometimes very still camera is appropriate for the material, but the film's pacing is off. I have nothing against slow films (actually, some of my favorite movies are very slow ones) but The Milk of Sorrow is just too slow, and for no apparent reason. It definitely gives the movie a dreamy sort of quality, but the filmmakers also risk losing their audience. The movie is only 94 minutes long, but it surely feels a lot longer. Did the film need to be slow? I don't think so.

I really wanted to like The Milk of Sorrow. Technically, it's superior to other Peruvian productions, and performances are solid, but the movie's main problem is that it doesn't work at all as a narrative. There's very little plot to speak of and characters – especially Fausta, the protagonist – are zombies. I appreciate what Claudia Llosa tried to do – actually, I admire it, mainly because, from watching the film, it's apparent a lot of effort went into the making of the production. But the fact that I admire the filmmakers and what they were trying to do doesn't mean I have to like the movie. Unfortunately, although many independent and/or artsy movies are really, really good (a pleasant change from Hollywood's loud and noisy productions), not all of them are as good as one would want them to be. La Teta Asustada had lots of potential, but sadly it didn't fulfill them. Hopefully, Llosa's next film will be superior.

La teta asustada (2009), directed by Claudia Llosa, tells the story of Fausta—an indigenous young woman who is subject to the poverty presently dominating much of rural Peru in the aftermath of heinous crimes that surged throughout most of the country during the second half of the twentieth century. Set in the outskirts of Lima, Fausta's story is one in which the protagonist undergoes immense character development as she faces various obstacles after her mother's death (at the beginning of the film). These trials challenge her several fears, including her extreme aversion towards men and her seemingly excessive fear of being raped.

The film's title stems from the commonly held belief that Fausta suffers from a disease transmitted to her from her mother during breast-feeding. Prior to her death, Fausta's mother sings about the horrible violence she endured earlier in life. She and her family believe her mother's fears were thus transmitted to Fausta. This "illness" manifests itself through various "symptoms," such as Fausta's reluctance to go out and do anything without the company of an individual she trusts, as well as through her shocking decision to place a potato inside her vagina in hopes of preventing rape.

Overall, the plot revolves around Fausta overcoming these fears, in addition to her marginalized role as a poor, indigenous woman, in order to obtain enough money to afford a proper burial for her mother's corpse.

The main criticism I offer regarding this film is that it falls short of providing both insight into and a brief history of the horrific violence that surged through Peru in the late 1900s. In providing the audience with a world-view likely unfamiliar to them, Llosa assumes that the viewer is familiar with this violence, which may lead to confusion at various points. Without background information, it is easy for the viewer to assume Fausta's fears are completely and utterly irrational, which I believe can be detrimental to the viewing experience.

© A.J. Malouin 2011

(Rating: 3 by A.J. Malouin.) (See our side-bar page "How We Rate Movies" at www.What-To-See-Next.com)

(2009/Spain/Peru. Directed by Claudia Llosa.) Here's a film that could sustain its Best-Foreign-Film Academy-Award nomination on the basis of its cinematography alone. Beautiful in composition and execution, "La teta asustada" ["The Milk of Sorrow"] is -- from first shots to last -- a joy to view.

This is a fine thing, because the film is a tad slow-moving until we get totally into it.

It opens with a beautiful, singing set piece of a young woman's mother dying.

It ends with that same woman leaning over to enjoy the fragrance of a flowering potato plant.

In between, the young woman undergoes an visually intoxicating journey from fears of the past to hopes of the future.

It's such a beautiful journey that, 24 hours after viewing it, this writer dreams of viewing it again. <!--more-->

"La teta asustada" is a story of fact and fable.

It's a fact that the young woman's mother was raped during warfare while she was pregnant with the young woman. It's a fact that the mother taught the young woman to create and sing little songs whenever she is frightened. It's also a fact that the young woman is frightened much of the time. She has taken drastic measures to overcome her biggest fear.

What is fable is that the young woman's fears were inherited from her mother by suckling that mother's breast milk.

The film is full of everyday scenes of how the poor live on the outskirts of Lima, Peru. It's also full of scenes that take place inside and on the grounds of "the big house" where the young woman has gone to work as the night maid.

"La teta asustada" is full of native Peruvian ceremonial courtship and wedding customs, beautiful Peruvian song and music, and exquisitely composed shots of the Peruvian landscape.

Overriding it all, however, is the tangible, taste-able sadness and fear of the young woman. Over the course of 94 gorgeous minutes, that sadness and fear is gently, soulfully left behind, at the seashore, in a hospital operating room, and at the hands of a gentle gardener who comes to see the beauty in the wonderful simplicity of a flowering potato plant.

As with all of our most rewarding film experiences, it's difficult to put into words all the emotions and images this film releases in the heart of its viewers.

Once you've seen "La teta asustada," however, simple things like pearls, potatoes, sand, and stairways will never look the same to you again. Don't deny yourself these sad, simple, beautiful pleasures

Hollywood's cultural Marxists have perfected their formula for nominating Foreign Films to the Oscars. This movie has all components to meet Hollywood's requirements for liberal / leftist neoliberal propaganda. This film has a nice music score, good sound and great photography, showing the bleak and bare landscape the characters live in, and most importantly it thrives on showing how infinitely evil white people are, which is a prevalent theme for Hollywoods leftist propagandists of today.

So, If you are a foreign filmmaker and want to follow in the steps of self hating whitey director Claudia Llosa, and you want to be noticed by the great (((people))) in Hollywood, here are the most important ingredients for foreign movie Oscar nomination :

01 - Regurgitate the "Holocaust".. because we all know that there aren't enough Holocaust movies already.. This movie touches on this theme indirectly when we see the a portrait of an evil white man wearing a military uniform in the evil white woman's bedroom, because you know that all white people must be evil descendants of military white men, exploiters of native people around the world.

02 - Show the differences in lifestyles between between non-white, native foreign populations and the inevitable evil, and very rich white people. In the case of this movie the main character, (who happens to actually look more white than most of her family) ends up working as a maid for an evil blonde white woman, who also happens to be very wealthy and it is never shown to be doing anything of any importance.. We all know that rich white people, have nothing but idle time in their hands, right?

Later we find out, the rich and very evil white lady is a pianist and a composer, but we are never shown her practicing her piano playing or working on her music.. but why.. we all know that evil white people don't have to do any work, even in artistic fields, everything is handed over to them in a silver spoon. Brown people are the only ones who do ALL the work LOL

03 - Show that white people are really evil, unjust and dishonest. As the movie develops, we notice that the rich white lady, is not only spoiled, she is also a thief who steals a melody that the main character sings and plays it in her piano concert.. just to remind the audience that white people have always been thieves and they have stolen everything they have from native people.. In the lowest point of the movie, the evil white lady throws the poor innocent native Indian woman out of her car when they are driving from the concert, after she makes a sarcastic remark, a plot twist that is just ridiculous and exaggerated.

04 - Marxist Feminism 101: Show that most men of all races are also just like white people.. They are EVIL. As if the "white people are evil" propaganda wasn't enough, the director also had to include some necessary "men are evil" propaganda, when the main character's drunk uncle tries to rape her, in the aftermath of her daughter's wedding.. another ridiculous and exaggerated plot twist.

If you carefully examine all recent foreign Oscar nominated movies, you will find some of these elements present in the plot.. and this of course is no accident, as the (((people))) who run Hollywood know exactly what kind of anti-white propaganda to promote.

After seeing the movie "The Milk of Sorrow" by Peruvian filmmaker Claudia Llosa. I have the opinion that it is a story of fear provoked by popular beliefs in Peru, because some women in the Shining Path Era, a Guerrilla group of the eighties that it emerged in Peru, they were raped and mistreated and had children marked by this fear. Fausta is a young woman marked and judged by society since she is the daughter of a rape and her mother was responsible for transmitting this fear with popular beliefs such as the frightened tit, "milk of sorrow", which is transmitted by mothers to their mothers. babies. You can also clearly see the social racism in this movie. After the death of Fausta's mother, she needs to get money to be able to bury her mother in her homeland, that's when she gets a job in a house of high social class where the owner takes advantage of her shyness and lack of education by stealing a song that uses it as theirs. Fausta confronts her fears in that house and confronts them when she meets the gardener of the house, speaks with her own language that is Quechua, she feels very good with him. Fausta's strength is imposed on the pain and fear in which he lived in that society, he manages to remove the potato he had in his body, which caused him discomfort. She manages to bury her mother but first she goes through the sea that signals the new life that awaits her later, a hope of a new life for Fausta, without fears, without pain. The film also shows violence against women that leaves them soulless and very afraid.

Claudia Llosa's drama The Milk Of Sorrow is an award winning film that has toured the festival circuit and was also Peru's entry for the 2010 Foreign Language Oscar. The central character here is Fausta (played by Magaly Solier), who has grown up hearing her mother's horror stories about rape and the atrocities committed curing the violent 1980's in her native Peru. Traumatised and sexually repressed, she plants a potato in her vagina, which is meant to ward off potential rapists. Fausta has been suckled on "the milk of sorrow", which basically means that the horrors endured by her mother whilst Fausta was in the womb have been transmitted on to her through breast milk. When her mother dies, Fausta has to try and raise some money in order to transport the body back to her home village and pay for the funeral. She lands a job as a maid to the imperious and emotionally stolid Mrs Aida (Susi Sanchez), a singer preparing for a concert. The dark and eerie home on the outskirts of the city is symbolic of Mrs Aida's own sterile and empty life. When the woman hears the shy Fausta sing, she offers her pearls from one of her necklaces in exchange for the occasional song. Fausta also strikes up a friendship with the gardener Noe (Efrain Solis), who shares his passion for flowers with her. The garden is a metaphor for growth and freedom, and becomes hugely symbolic as Fausta slowly begins to reconnect with the world and discovers that even the most withdrawn and traumatised of women can flourish. The Milk Of Sorrow is the second film from director Llosa, and she handles the material with restraint. Llosa draws a strong and surprising contrast between the humour and beauty of life in the slums and the fear and isolation that permeate life in the city. The film also offers some insights into the culture, traditions and superstitions of village life in contemporary Peru. Peru's recent history of violence, particularly under the Shining Path, and war inform this contemporary drama, and the events of the past cast a muted shadow over the events. Even though these horrors are a distant memory for most they still resonate strongly for many of the characters here. Solier, who also appeared in the director's first film Madeinusa, gives an understated performance as Fausta. Natasha Baiers' cinematography is beautiful, and Selma Mutais' haunting music score enriches the film. However, the film is languidly paced, and its slow pace means that many in the audience will fail to connect emotionally with Fausta's journey. It is easy for audiences to somehow remain detached from the whole thing.

(This comment lists potential spoilers in so far as vague descriptions as to how the movie ends).

As an American living in Lima, Peru for 2 years, I try hard to immerse myself in the language and culture here - as many expatriates also do. I think native Peruvians may see this film as not having an overwhelming theme or not ending with definitive answers to difficult issues.

What I think this film does do very well is give a unique perspective into the life of a class of person that many middle and upper class people are curious about. For me it was a slice of a person's life in which I could experience first-hand, alongside the protagonist. It is unlikely that in real life, could I visit these same places, step into their houses, share their conversations and experience their most intimate thoughts.

Personally I like the fact that the film does not close with a sense of some deep satisfaction that a difficulty has been resolved and people are now free to live with closure. Often times this can give an audience false assurance that all is well, no need to act, everything is now OK, if the problem can be resolved in the movie, it will take care of itself in reality. Instead, Llosa gives us a mere slice of life for these Peruvian characters and it is up to the audience to decide if or how to participate solving these issues in reality, and those issues are many fold.

The budget was not expansive, but the true beauty was the characters. This is a movie where I believe Llosa didn't intend to spell everything out, but make the viewer have to think and ask questions.

La teta asustada is less of an imitation of any known cinematic style or mode of storytelling and more of an evocation of the feelings of helplessness, confusion, and injustice stemming from Peru's turbulent period of violence between the 1980s and 2000s as El Sendero Luminoso clashed with the government. An understanding of this history is necessary to appreciate and grasp the meaning of Fausta's sickness, la teta asustada, especially where the film provokes memories of that period through Fausta's struggles as a member of an indigenous Peruvian culture.

There's a lot of raw, suppressed emotion just barely revealed through each scene's subtleties, often played against the forthrightness of Fausta's mother singing about her rape and hope for a better life, and Fausta herself recites songs from her culture in the face of a modern oppressor, hearkening back to Peru's violent past. Those injustices are reevoked by Fausta's employer, to whom she is a servant, by her promising Fausta pearls if she sings—though this seems more like coercion—and she then steals her cultural songs.

Audiences might find some distaste or a strong sense of confusion at hearing about Fausta's method of preventing rape using a potato—forced on her by a neighbor when she was a child, no less. The anxiety of this being the reality haunts the viewer in the same way that la teta asustada haunts Fausta. Remorse and tension also arise when it's clear that Fausta's mother's mummified remains have been kept in the house in lieu of a proper burial. Though belief that the significance lies again with Peru's history, the film leaves much more to interpretation. In truth, it could have very little to do with El Sendero Luminoso, but the fact that Fausta is cursed by la teta asustada suggests otherwise.

La teta asustada is not clear about its own meaning, and perhaps that's for the better. To be indirect about an obvious fact may emphasize the directness of the commentary on it, so the director's decision to keep things vague yet well-established in a world of social inequity may entice viewers to recognize past happenings that were once kept secret. Being aesthetically pleasing—though in an off-putting way—but not very plot-driven, it is enjoyable with the expectation that it will, essentially, not be enjoyable or exciting.