By Variety | Created at 2024-11-22 15:48:32 | Updated at 2024-11-22 22:53:14
7 hours ago
A ghostly apparition clamored for justice in Jayro Bustamante’s blazing political horror “La Llorona,” about the genocide of Indigenous people in Guatemala. In the genre, the Central American auteur found a piercing vehicle to discuss the sociopolitical afflictions of his homeland. With “Rita,” Guatemala’s entry for the international feature Oscar (Bustamante’s third time representing the country), he returns to this mode for a gritty, dark fantasy based on an unspeakable 2017 tragedy involving young girls placed in a government-run shelter, which remains unpunished today. To disclose further details about the case would spoil “Rita,” but it suffices to say no happy resolution came to pass.
Thirteen-year-old Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz) has landed at a facility for troubled girls — somewhere between a juvenile detention center and an orphanage — after escaping abhorrent abuse at home. But the conditions there are more akin to that of a rundown prison. Girls in each room see themselves as distinct otherworldly creatures, hence the costumes. Rita landed with the angels, girls who wear feathered wings, but there are also fairies, and the more enigmatic group that self-dominates “the stars.” There’s an air of theatricality to the disguises they wear. Given that Rita explains this is not exactly how the events took place, one is initially inclined to think that these whimsical accessories are only their imagination. The true meaning behind them proves far more sinister.
Consistently a film of stark beauty, “Rita” exhibits a sometimes dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish quality that cinematographer Inti Briones mines from the contrast between the fairytale attires and the harshness of the setting, aided by elements of production design as well as some digital effects. Rita walking through the spectral halls at night, always wearing her wings, is the image of a heavenly creature trapped in an inescapable abyss. That’s especially the case when she runs into unsettling entities, some intangible and other more dangerous flesh-and-blood ones — sexual predators abound among the staff in charge of caring for the girls.
At first with cautious skepticism, Rita begins to form alliances with other angels, such as the endearing Bebé (Alejandra Vásquez) and the no-nonsense Sulmy (Ángela Quevedo). They have been there longer and have hard-fought intel on how to navigate the daily horrors.
Over the course of his stellar career, Bustamante has often successfully guided first-time actors into emotionally challenging performances. The ensemble of young female actors, some of whom turn in characters representing defined archetypes, often comes across as a singular, unified entity on screen with some room for individual standouts (Vásquez being one). With the demanding title role, Santa Cruz makes her striking film debut. Oscillating between fury and vulnerability, playing a survivor whose sole objective is rescuing her younger sister from experiencing the same harm she has, Santa Cruz searingly projects the indelible hurt Rita carries behind her eyes. Beyond being laced with magical realism, what elevates “Rita” is that the adolescent heroines are not devoid of spunk, nor presented as morally pristine, but rather as reacting to the violence and mistreatment that have shaped their young lives. They curse their victimizer with the most strident of Spanish expletives. They smoke. And they are smarter, if less powerful, than their captors.
Fittingly, one of the most terrifying scenes has little to do with the supernatural, but instead concerns itself with the grotesque ignorance that upholds the conditions that allow for the girls suffering. The long-haired social worker (Margarita Kenéfic), at times referred to as “the witch,” summons Rita to her office to inquire about the events that led her to be placed in this institution. As the teen expounds on the monstrous acts her own father committed against her, the elderly woman suggests that Rita is not blameless in the situation. The blood-boiling conversation is reflective of how these girls — most of them rape victims — are perceived by the system. One of the guards even justifies his actions explaining these are not girls, but criminals.
On the production side, “Rita” made history as the first co-production between Guatemala and the United States, via Bustamante’s company La Casa de Producción and the American outfit Concordia Studio. Most of Bustamante’s recurrent adult actors from his last three features have small parts here, including “Ixcanul” star María Telón, playing Rita’s guardian angel, a woman who took her in after she ran away from home. The lead in the gay-themed “Tremors,” Juan Pablo Olyslager, and Sabrina De La Hoz, prominent in “La Llorona,” both appear playing malevolent characters working for the oppressive powers that be.
To powerful, even shocking effect, Bustamante’s incisive writing slowly deploys revelations that point us to rethink what we thought we knew about the narrative, in particular with regards to the costumes and rituals the girls have implemented for their own collective safety. However, more than any of his other issues-centered marvels to date, “Rita” falls a bit didactic at the end. But since the case on which “Rita” is based remains controversial and unsolved in Guatemala, one can somewhat forgive, or at least understand, the filmmaker’s need to explicitly spell out his intent via narration. Nonetheless, Bustamante remains a narratively resourceful and exciting artist. If not a flat-out consummation of his talents, “Rita” certainly expands his scope into more intricate tonal and stylistic experimentation, as he completely frees himself from the chains of straightforward realism.
