Jayro Bustamante follows 2019’s critically acclaimed Criterion launch La Llorona with one other fascinating Guatemalan exposé in Shudder’s Rita. The place La Llorona speaks volumes about ruthless genocidal struggle crimes, Rita mirrors Issa López’s excellent Tigers Are Not Afraid as a heartbreaking juvenile fairy story. Bustamante fictionalizes the occasions of Guatemala’s tragic 2017 orphanage hearth by fantastical illustrations that empower the unvoiced. Forty-one women died locked inside their Virgen de la Asunción dorm, in a government-run shelter, and Bustamante superbly honors their rebellious spirits by Rita’s highly effective retelling. A preservation of historical past on recaptured phrases, a spark that combats blanketed darkness.
Giuliana Santa Cruz stars as Rita, a 13-year-old survivor of an abusive father whose reward is being despatched to a state-run house for parentless kids. Rita observes her environment, which she describes as a jail full of “super-powered” women. There are fairies, angels, and different varieties who swear to flee the “witches and trolls” that run the establishment. Angels like Gladys (Glendy Asturias Rucal), Sulmi (Ángela Joana Quevedo), and Bebé (Alejandra Vásquez Carrillo) educate Rita the ropes and warn who to keep away from. The women stay beneath oppression and worry however refuse to again down — particularly with tales of an unknown savior to liberate their ranks.
Bustamante’s method is tender however tough-skinned, good-looking however barbaric. Rita is a fantastical fable that equates Guatemalan authorities workers to ogres and does not shrink back from the nation’s horrific remedy of adolescent women, particularly these preyed upon by pedophile dad and mom or guards in positions of energy. There’s shared DNA between Rita and Tigers Are Not Afraid in how each visions confront nationalistic despicableness by whimsical means, leaning into childhood views that intensify the mindsets of every movie’s younger protagonists. Rita’s journey is as agonizing as it’s fiercely antagonistic, shining a light-weight on mistreatment and misogyny gone unchecked. You are in for a heavy watch lifted by artistry, however not in any pandering means that pads influence.
Cinematographer Inti Briones turns a closely guarded orphanage right into a battle-torn land of make-believe. Manufacturing design paired with Briones’ immaculate framing paints Rita’s feather-clad gang as angelic icons, symbols of failed innocents shot beneath imaginary thunderclouds that seem of their dormitory. Bustamante’s rewrite is a Grimm fable that leans into visible storytelling, from the black-veiled “Stars” clan — who symbolize morbid attributes — to the sequences of Rita’s cohorts “flying” as if their wings grant them talents. There is a widespread floor between fantasy and actuality that is saved in examine but allowed to specific surrealism that soothes the story’s relentless stings.
Cruz and her underage co-stars are unflappable fighters who wage struggle in cafeterias or scamper by woodlands away from their protected abusers. Bustamante asks the world of those women and will get maturity past their years in return, particularly Cruz, enjoying a barely-teen sufferer who leads a small-scale revolt. Grownup actors like Ernesto Molina Samperio as disgusting shelter guard William are requested to be unspeakable villains, however their repulsive behaviors improve the infuration and despair behind Rita’s attributes. Behind Rita’s wounded willpower is a shattered childhood; La Terca’s (André Sebastián Aldana) anarchistic management shields youthful paranoias, determined to keep away from extra government-sanctioned misconduct.
It is a difficult movie to execute as a result of emotional weights are hoisted by tiny kids’s arms. Nonetheless, they’re superheroes of their roles — a profound assertion made to honor these Guatemalan orphans who needlessly died.
Rita is an achingly devastating historic reinterpretation born from a hearth in Bustamante’s stomach. The occasions it is based mostly upon ought to flip you blood-red in anger, however the film itself evokes civilian uprisings with an intrepid stance. It is a story of rage, defiance, eloquence, and pixie mud that demolishes ethical boundaries. Rita amplifies the horrors in unchecked actualities, as Bustamante as soon as once more makes use of style trappings to focus on abhorrent Guatemalan normalities saved from public notion. Much more so, Rita is a testomony to the silenced women stolen from this world in 2017, in hopes their rallying cries will encourage a brand new era to struggle again in opposition to anybody who treats girls with the identical shameless disrespect as, nicely, Donald Trump’s new cupboard committee.
As Rita says, “The story does not finish right here” — a harrowing relevance that reverberates to the soul of nations stricken by “Your Physique, My Alternative” chuds who’re rotten core. It’s not a message to waste or ignore. Not now, not ever.
Film Rating: 4/5
