Felipe Canasto
dir. by Dario Cardona Herreros
(95m, Paraguay, Spanish with English subtitles)


The inhabitants of a small village lost in time and space hide not only many secrets and lies, but also wishes and hopes.

An anonymous war plundered the small community, leaving its surviving souls worn out. A handful of men and women, whose youth ended long ago, fall behind. Magdalena is an overwhelmingly strong woman with morals. Beatriz, an old woman, has a special child and keeps a sad secret. Deolinda is sensitive but helplessly ill-favored by nature. All of them find a motive for love, desire and grief, in a word, for life. Risking their lives, they will protect a mysterious hamper that holds a secret.

So far, the village has been peaceful under the watchful eye of the General, who, embedded in the brilliance of past years doles out so-called justice. Animals, and later visitors, are killed. Everyone is under suspicion, all names are recorded. As the villagers search to regain peace, a foreigner arrives looking for his son, who disappeared in the war.

The three women are fenced in and blamed for the village’s misfortune. Laura is a lustful neighbor who accuses them of being ungodly and worship ping demons, for she is envious of that which she has never had.

Little by little, those inside the village die. Survivors are to be hung to prove not guilty. In an act of rebelliousness and bravery, the women risk their integrity to protect their secret. They are punished with brutal mutilation. The tongue of the one who remains silent is removed. The eyes of the one who hides things are gouged out. The ears of the one who listens to the forbidden are sliced off.

At last, the secret in the hamper is revealed. The blessed treasure the women have kept hidden is Felipe, a brutally war-wounded man with no limbs. They had turned his body and soul into their object of desire or their chance to love.

The end is poetic as well as terrifying. Felipe meets death. As nature abhors vacuum, the women recover their land, forcing men to walk barefoot and to bear the crosses the women had carried before.

The three women march, crying and laughing at the uncertainty of living without blame, with no demons to carry with them. All they have left is new land and their desires.

Thursday, 6/23/11
7:30 - 9:00 pm
at Bananas