User Reviews

A corpse being offered another drink, the bloodstained thighs of a maidenhead lost, dead rats (for luck), three days of religious celebration when God is dead, and a ritual for the whole village so secret that a visiting stranger is locked up: these are just some of the strange, wonderful images that remind us more of the Wicker Man than modern day Peru. But in a country where many rural areas are still isolated and barely accessible, where Christianity made its mark more in name than in spirit, and where the outback life is rarely depicted in Western cinemas, Madeinusa comes as a shock, a spellbinding insight, and a refreshingly different fable.

The nearest telephone is a three mile walk to the next village and the daily grind consists mostly of cultivating enough food to subsist. It comes as no surprise when Madeinusa, a pretty adolescent, is enamoured by the suave young man (Salvador) from Lima. He only stops in the remote Manayaycuna (the town no-one can enter) when the bus refuses to go any further due to floods. He symbolises everything she dreams the big city to be - and everything her present life is not. In Manayaycuna her life is mapped out for her, including arguments with her sister and the ever-present prospect of institutionalised incest with her father, the corrupt Mayor. The distant world outside includes things like pretty shoes and make-up - according to a magazine she once saw - but no-one would deliver such things as far away as Manayaycuna.

Shortly after Salvador arrives, Madeinusa wins the pageant held to choose the most Immaculate Virgin. Her heart is warmed by a Polaroid picture he takes of her. The Rituals that follow are a paganised version of the days leading up to Easter. An image of Christ is un-nailed and taken down before the beautifully bedecked virgin kisses him on the lips. The three days of celebration are marked by fireworks and festivities. They are the Holy Time, when God is dead, and as Madeinusa points out to Salvador (while taking some of her clothes off), this means He can't see any sins.

Madeinusa is a remarkably crafted work from first time filmmaker Claudia Llosa. Superb camera-work and vibrant colours let her linger on details without ever boring us. The roughly cobbled streets; the vegetables and pulses in worn peasant hands preparing them; the bright, highly intricate costumes; the wide open plains, and the snow capped mountains: Llosa takes us on a journey into the interior of a country that few of us will know well, and capitalises on our sense of awe to weave her fantastic tale. Like Salvador, we are almost voyeurs in a forbidden world: "The town doesn't want a gringo in Holy Time." The twists towards the end suggest that when fate hands out justice it may not be to everyone's liking (it may irritate some who long for traditional happy resolutions - at least until you think it through), but Madeinusa is more fable than fairy-tale. If it is too measured for viewers who prefer a fast paced drama, for those with the patience to listen it is a rare and slightly unsettling work. Madeinusa has a feeling of authenticity and dedication to the craft, as well as heralding a remarkable new talent in Director Claudia Llosa.

This movie's truly original pitch/premise has so much potential, and I can't stress enough the words SO MUCH POTENTIAL, that the story Claudia Llosa chose in the end, although interesting and beautiful in it's own way, falls short compared to the expectation THAT pitch creates. In other words, there are so many possibilities regarding human sinful behavior and how to approach it given this 'sin doesn't exist for like 3 days for some "faithful believers"' idea that one is left wanting to see the movie from the point of view of 5 or 6 totally different characters instead.

The movie won like 5 or 6 Best Screenplay awards in different film festivals besides winning an award at the Mar del Plata film festival AND being nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards, which says a lot. However, the screenplay is not perfect. There are scenes which are dull and to be honest, plain dumb; a couple of others could've been left out without causing a negative effect.

But talking about Madeinusa's positive aspects and artistic value, the movie's defining moment (and the most memorable one in "first-time-acting/first-time-directing" independent film making history, I must say) has got to be Magaly Solier's interpretation of the song (created by herself, by the way) she sings to Salvador. The most humble, truly innocent, naive and authentic performance you'll ever see this side of the world. That scene alone is worth watching a couple of times and help diminish all those little plot holes/errors/contradictions that could've been polished to perfection in Llosa's script.

"Madeinusa" is the "...Spinal Tap" of ethnographic movies. With its tongue firmly entrenched in cheek, this Peruvian film may have you defending incest for an embarrassingly long time. Writer/director Claudia Llosa knows her audience are culturally-sensitive, global citizens who wouldn't dream of insisting that a non-western settlement adopt our own Christian-sanctioned assortment of ideals and mores. When Cayo(Juan Ubaldo Huaman) jumps in bed with his two daughters(Madeinusa and Chale), we consider the social context and rationalize this deviant behavior as being the practices of a society that doesn't place a taboo on inter-family relationships. Funny thing, though; this Peruvian backwater IS a god-fearing community. Every year, they pretend he's dead for three days, literally dead, which means Jesus isn't just magic for the remaining three-hundred-sixty odd days to these country-folk, Jesus is alive. The town holds an annual pageant to crown this year's virgin, and this year, Madeinusa(Magaly Solier), is it. She's quite literally, a quasi-Christian beauty queen: Miss Dead Jesus. There's floats. There's fireworks. And most importantly, the people are granted a weekend-long get-out-of-hell card; without repercussions, debauchery(wife-swapping, the aforementioned incest) is practiced without the confinements of moral legislation. Now, at long last, incest can safely be called perverted, because Cayo does indeed know that having relations with your own flesh and blood is perverted. When the wayfaring gringo says that the town is crazy, it gives the audience permission to throw caution out the window and openly criticize their primitive inclinations.

Salvador(Carlos J. de la Torre) is a white man from Lima. He's our repository for western ideas(e.g. incest: a bad idea), the guy who is willing to call a spade a spade(he thinks the people are crazy; we concur), which is why his vertical quickie with Madeinusa in the midst of the communal grab-ass festival, startles us, because the film knows how men are. Fear of incarceration, sadly, may be the sole reason why the moral divide between camaraderie and intimacy isn't crossed. With no stronghold of the law to keep Salvador's libido in check, our "civilized" man pins Madeinusa to the wall and makes like a piston.

"Madeinusa" is a stinging indictment against organized religion. Think about Father Oliver O'Grady in "Deliver us from Evil" who violated all those little boys and girls. These Peruvians(fictionalized Peruvians, let me make that clear) are honest about the darker side of human nature. "Madeinusa", cobbled from Stephen King's "Children of the Corn"(short story, film; either/or) and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery", forces us to ask about the state of God each time we sin. We're all assassins, right? It doesn't take a village.

I have spent time traveling in Peru and speak Spanish and found the portrayal of indigenous life and especially the religious ceremonies fascinating. I was horrified by the incest and in particular the aunt who pimped her niece to the father. I don't think Madeinusa fell in love with the gringo, as one review in the Seattle International Film Festival said, but that she was in wonder at someone so different. She seemed slow mentally, while her sister was sharp and cynical, calling the Gringo a liar when he said he would bring her the red shoes she saw in the magazine. Why did he even say that? What did he want from her? After being locked up by the mayor, why was the gringo willing to follow him up the stairs into the attic and didn't even he even see Madeinusa? Lots of questions...Wouldn't these indigenous people of Peru speak Quechua or some indigenous language other than Spanish? Are we really to believe that the young woman was so infuriated by her father breaking her earrings (from her mother) that she killed him or that it was really the violation of the sex he imposed on her? Lastly, shouldn't her name have been MadeinChina? So few things are made in this country these days!

If only there were one redemption in this film, it would have made a better story. Every villager uses those few short hours from 3pm on Easter Friday to 6am Easter Sunday to commit at least one mortal sin under the guise that Christ/God can't see what is going on.

If only the filmmaker had offered some respite.. one good person... one soul where we could "hang our hat" and empathize.

Or... why not incorporate some Magical Realism to make this story a real fable and less a documentary on reasons NOT to go to Peru?

IMHO the film needed something more -- it felt incomplete. For example, why was the girl named Made In USA? What does the USA have to do with this? The structure is great -- the truck ride in and out... the moment of denouement when Madeinusa chimes in with her sister to denounce the Gringo is perfect... but in the end, I left the film unfulfilled and put off by a new and ugly window on Peru. Surely that is not what she wanted.

I give this film a five because I want to encourage South American filmmakers and there are some good things going on, but ultimately, not enough to raise this above average.