Milk of Sorrow and Gardens, Part III

The wall and gates, however, limit this garden to only the rich white colonizers and lock out Fausta’s indigenous family members and their impoverished community. As if responding to this exploitation, Fausta’s nose bleeds when she encounters her mistress Aida. In her servant’s alcove, she sings to hide her fear as she cuts off potato growth. The estate garden seems to usurp her own inner garden in this scene. Yet, when Fausta encounters and joins forces with the estate gardener, Noé (Efraín Solís), she discovers a way to bridge her community’s constructed garden and her own inner garden with the fecundity of Aida’s oasis. An initial connection occurs when shots of a colorful wedding in the desolate Lima hills are juxtaposed with images of a shattered piano disrupting Aida’s garden. In Lima’s desolate landscape, ornate clothing and violet tents transform into flowers erupting out of the desert. But Aida’s paradise is disrupted by the broken piano thrust from a window into the foliage below. In both scenes, the garden and machine merge, highlighting the similarity between the two spaces.

But it is Fausta’s relationship with Noé that moves her to a middle place that allows both human and nonhuman nature to blossom. Aida and her garden highlight the war and exploitation Fausta and her mother attempt to escape in Lima. Fausta’s uncle’s family shows us an artificial garden built for the colonized. But Noé and Fausta integrate nonhuman nature in the wasteland outside Aida’s walls. Although Aida claims watering her garden “calms her,” she exploits Fausta, stealing her mermaid song and breaking a promise to give Fausta the pearls they collect from a broken necklace. She remains locked away, even throwing Fausta out of her car after a concert. Noé on the other hand, offers her comfort and security, not only by escorting her home (from a distance) but by teaching her to cultivate plants, a skill she gained first from a village vegetable garden before their forced move to Lima. As Noé explains, “plants tell the truth about people,” and the flowers she chooses tell him she needs comforting. Together they burn the piano, as if resisting the machine. And instead of “bleeding roses” from her nose, Fausta holds a gardenia in her mouth. When she asks him why he plants everything but potatoes in the garden, Noé explains that potatoes are cheap and flourish little.

When Fausta finally begs to have the potato removed, she and Noé gain access to that more verdant middle place. After stealing back the pearls she earned, Fausta faints at the estate gate where Noé finds her and carries her to the clinic for the removal. With the pearls in her possession, Fausta can transport her mother away from Lima and reunite her with the natural world she was forced to leave behind. In a dramatic turn, Fausta carries her mother across a beach and leaves her close to the ocean where she sings as the sea takes her mother home. Fausta has now become part of a larger biotic community, a middle place where thriving traditional parks, bright-colored constructed gardens, and her own potato can thrive. As a symbol of this middle place, Noé leaves a flower on her porch, a blooming potato plant.

Milk of Sorrow and Gardens, Part III

The wall and gates, however, limit this garden to only the rich white colonizers and lock out Fausta’s indigenous family members and their impoverished community. As if responding to this exploitation, Fausta’s nose bleeds when she encounters her mistress Aida. In her servant’s alcove, she sings to hide her fear as she cuts off potato growth. The estate garden seems to usurp her own inner garden in this scene. Yet, when Fausta encounters and joins forces with the estate gardener, Noé (Efraín Solís), she discovers a way to bridge her community’s constructed garden and her own inner garden with the fecundity of Aida’s oasis. An initial connection occurs when shots of a colorful wedding in the desolate Lima hills are juxtaposed with images of a shattered piano disrupting Aida’s garden. In Lima’s desolate landscape, ornate clothing and violet tents transform into flowers erupting out of the desert. But Aida’s paradise is disrupted by the broken piano thrust from a window into the foliage below. In both scenes, the garden and machine merge, highlighting the similarity between the two spaces.

But it is Fausta’s relationship with Noé that moves her to a middle place that allows both human and nonhuman nature to blossom. Aida and her garden highlight the war and exploitation Fausta and her mother attempt to escape in Lima. Fausta’s uncle’s family shows us an artificial garden built for the colonized. But Noé and Fausta integrate nonhuman nature in the wasteland outside Aida’s walls. Although Aida claims watering her garden “calms her,” she exploits Fausta, stealing her mermaid song and breaking a promise to give Fausta the pearls they collect from a broken necklace. She remains locked away, even throwing Fausta out of her car after a concert. Noé on the other hand, offers her comfort and security, not only by escorting her home (from a distance) but by teaching her to cultivate plants, a skill she gained first from a village vegetable garden before their forced move to Lima. As Noé explains, “plants tell the truth about people,” and the flowers she chooses tell him she needs comforting. Together they burn the piano, as if resisting the machine. And instead of “bleeding roses” from her nose, Fausta holds a gardenia in her mouth. When she asks him why he plants everything but potatoes in the garden, Noé explains that potatoes are cheap and flourish little.

When Fausta finally begs to have the potato removed, she and Noé gain access to that more verdant middle place. After stealing back the pearls she earned, Fausta faints at the estate gate where Noé finds her and carries her to the clinic for the removal. With the pearls in her possession, Fausta can transport her mother away from Lima and reunite her with the natural world she was forced to leave behind. In a dramatic turn, Fausta carries her mother across a beach and leaves her close to the ocean where she sings as the sea takes her mother home. Fausta has now become part of a larger biotic community, a middle place where thriving traditional parks, bright-colored constructed gardens, and her own potato can thrive. As a symbol of this middle place, Noé leaves a flower on her porch, a blooming potato plant.

Milk of Sorrow and the Garden Part II

A doctor’s visit to treat the bloody nose broaches a second garden, a vining potato Fausta has inserted to shield her from men and the trauma her mother suffered. The uncle insists they are there only to treat her chronic bleeding and fainting episodes, and claims they are a product of her “milk of sorrow,” a horrific side effect of the terrorism into which Fausta was born. But the doctor notes only the potato, which has now inflamed Fausta’s vagina. If the potato grows, the doctor explains, roots will protrude. The uncle worries about harvesting potatoes and insists Fausta’s only ailment is the milk of sorrow. And Fausta argues the potato is not meant as a contraceptive but as a rape deterrent. Fausta is becoming a garden, but to avoid infection, the potato should be removed. Then Fausta can escape the trauma of her mother’s rape and death and consequently more effectively represent a middle place like that Adamson asserts.

Fausta’s attempt to bury her mother in her home village outside Lima reveals the third garden in the film: a traditional imperialist garden behind enormous gates walling out Lima and the arid mountains surrounding it. When her uncle gives Fausta only until his daughter’s wedding to bury her mother in her village, Fausta must find funds to transport the corpse. As New York Timescritic Jeannette Catsoulis explains, the film “explores the possibility of female empowerment in a culture suffocated by superstition and poverty.” If she fails to collect the needed money, Fausta’s mother will be buried in the backyard, in a grave her uncle transforms into a makeshift swimming pool. After investigating alternatives, including taking the body on a bus, Fausta accepts a job as a servant for a wealthy musician. When Fausta enters the estate, she leaves the noise and desolation of Lima behind her. Inside the estate’s gates is a green paradise full of trees and flowers. This literal garden aligns with a parting song Fausta sang to her mother’s corpse as they preserved it. For Fausta, her mother will be “picking flowers in heaven.” In the estate garden, Fausta can pick them on Earth.

The Milk of Sorrow and the Power of the Garden, Part 1

Directed by Claudia Llosa, the Peruvian drama The Milk of Sorrow (2009) illustrates at least three versions of the garden growing out of classism, racism, and a bloody civil war. Centered on young daughter Fausta’s (Magaly Solier) struggle to cope with her mother’s death and the memories of war she leaves behind, The Milk of Sorrow draws on musical and visual poetry of gardens to reveal conflicts between Fausta’s impoverished indigenous Lima, Peru community and the white upper-class inner-city fortress where she works as a servant. 

Ultimately, Fausta reconciles these conflicting views, negotiating a solution that promotes a middle ground like that Adamson proposes. The brightly colored artificial garden Fausta’s family creates may contrast greatly with the walled paradise inside Fausta’s employer Aida’s (Susi Sánchez) gates, but the garden growing inside Fausta (both literally and figuratively) serves as a bridge between their conflicting ideologies.

The first “garden” introduced in the film breaks the mournful singing and tragic death that open the film. Fausta’s mother shares her terrifying story on her deathbed, singing of the rapes she endured during Peru’s dirty war between Maoist guerrillas and government security forces in the 1980s and the cursed outcome for Fausta. Fausta has fed on her mother’s “milk of sorrow” and must feel her trauma even after her mother’s death. As critic Rick Vecchio explains, “tens of thousands of Andean Indians did flee to Lima in the 1980s and 1990s to escape political violence… [and] helped to shape the rich tapestry of Peru’s culture and form the character of its society.” 

When Fausta’s mother passes “like a dead bird,” however, the film reveals the colorful constructed garden outside Fausta’s uncle’s house. Although surrounded by barren mountains, Fausta’s cousin is trying on a wedding dress in their dusty yard, and the brightly dressed family sits around an outdoor table looking like flowers bursting out of the desert hills of their blue painted barrio. When Fausta appears, her nose begins to bleed, and a close-up of the blood seems to bud like a rose.This first garden provides color that combats the colorless traumas of war and gender and racial oppression.

Embarras Valley Film Festival Winners!

Documentary Film and Video Award Winners

First Place: Emily McNeill, Artist in Progress

Artist on Vimeo

Second Place: Miller Bradford, Submersion 

Submersion on YouTube

Fictional Film and Video Award Winners:

First Place: Ashley Cai, Hermes

Second Place: Alyce Rogers, Adam

November 28 Embarras Valley Film Festival Selections in Lumpkin Auditorium from 3-4:30!

2018 EVFF Student Film Selections

Directions:Vote for your top 3. Circle the three films you liked the most and, if you’d like, number them 1-3, with 1 being first place, 2 begin second, and 3 being third place.

Documentaries:

Madelyn by Mackensie Archibald [YouTube, EIU Student, 3.03] ______________

Monica Genta by Elazia Key [EIU Student, 2.43] _______________

Change is Coming by Ajan Patel [2.42] ______________________

Submersion by Miller Maahnes [6.35] __________________

ISalsa by Sandra Lena [7.00] __________________

One Story at a Time by Nathan Legger [5.13] ________________

Love, Olivia by Olivia Walker [5.29] ____________________

Artist in Progress by Emily McNeill [High School, 6.44] ____________________

Fictional Films:

The Button by Woody Hamilton [7.46] ___________________

Maybe Next Time? By Taylor Moore [2.09] __________________

The Lights are on But Nobody’s Home by Ethan Stephens [6.56]   ________________

Adam by Alyce Rogers [High School, 8.11] __________________

The Thrill of the Chase by Mike Sano [3.45] ___________________

Hermes by Ashley Cal [2.38] ____________________

Lilith by Nicole McBride [4.10] __________________

Misaligned by Weiyang Ben Wu [High School, 6.05] ____________________

Embarras Valley Film Festival at Eastern Illinois University on November 28!

Research Across Multiple Media: Promoting Faculty Work at EIU

Research Across Multiple Media

To simply describe Robin Murray as an English professor at Eastern Illinois University is to overlook the broad range of interests and expertise she brings to EIU in additional areas like film studies and women's studies. In particular, a good deal of her writing centers around the subject of ecology and the way ecological matters are addressed in various media.

EIU Innovate Podcast

Dean Hendrickson discusses monsters, zombies, Clint Eastwood and Bambi, among other topics with Dr. Robin Murray, professor of English, Film Studies and Women's Studies on EIU Innovate. Dr. Murray is the author of 6 books and over 40 articles, many of which examine the interaction between the environment and film. She also is the Director of the Eastern Illinois University's Writing Project, a National Writing Project Site:

Podcast on Sound Cloud

Embarras Valley Film Festival Accepting Submissions for its Student Film Festival!

Embarras Valley Film Festival 

Short Student Film Festival

Eastern Illinois University

Submit through Film Freeway: Film Freeway Submission Site

Embarras Valley Film Festival Call for Student Submissions

Deadline: November 18, 2018 
Festival: October 28, 2017

We are looking for short films of high artistic quality made by student filmmakers. Preference will be made for filmmakers from the Central Illinois area and high school students.

The EVFF is a yearly event honoring a person or theme relevant to the Embarras Valley, which encompasses much of East Central Illinois. This year’s festival highlights the horror and thriller film in Illinois.

Submission Guidelines: 
• Films should be short: no more than 10 minutes in length. 
• Entries should be labeled with: 
1. your name, 
2. address, 
3. email address, 
4. the title of your film, 
5. and a 2-3 sentence synopsis.

For more information about the festival visit 
www.eiu.edu/~evff 
or email rlmurray@eiu.edu

There is no submission fee for this student film festival. 

Awards & Prizes

Small monetary awards will be provided for first, second, and third place winners.

Rules & Terms

We are looking for short films/videos of high artistic quality made by student filmmakers, including promos, documentary shorts, and fictional films of any genre. 
Preference will be made for student filmmakers from Eastern Illinois University, the Central Illinois area, and Illinois high school students.

Submission Guidelines: 
• Films should be short: under 10 minutes in length. 
• Entries should be labeled with: 
1. your name, 
2. address, 
3. email address, 
4. the title of your film, 
5. and a 2-3 sentence synopsis.

For more information about the festival visit 
www.eiu.edu/~evff 
or email rlmurray@eiu.edu

There

White God Finale

In White God, Hagen finds the men who bought and tortured him, and with his canine army, kills them one by one. He even kills the neighbor who reported him to animal control. Police retaliate violently, shooting and killing dogs as they run wild throughout Budapest. Hagen continues his revenge plot, searching out and finding Lili’s father’s slaughterhouse workplace. Lili is there, though, and tries to bring back the pet she loves. She first tries playing fetch with him, but he bares his teeth instead. Yet when Lili plays her trumpet, Hagen and the remaining pack members stop barking and lie down. Lili lies down with Hagen, and her father joins her, bringing the film back to its opening Rilke quote. Made terrible by eco-traumas and the horrific behaviors they have caused, Hagen and his pack need love and respect and seem to find it with Lili and her trumpet.

Many reviewers agree with the production notes’ argument that White God serves as a “metaphor for the political and cultural tensions sweeping contemporary Europe.” Anthony Lane asserts, “you can hardly stage an insurrection, of whatever species, on the streets of Budapest without raising the ghost of the uprising there against Soviet rule, in 1956.” Rene Rodriguez suggests director Mundruczo

is up to something far grander and more ambitious than putting the viewer through the wringer. Although the allegory may seem facile, White God pulls off the difficult trick of exploring the consequences of exploiting the lower classes by using cute dogs as symbols for the oppressed and downtrodden.

For these reviewers, Hagen and his pack represent oppressed humans rather than dogs suffering from real environmental trauma.

For us, though, Hagen moves beyond symbol. As a companion species whose pleasure and pain align with our own, Hagen stands in only for himself, a dog who, as Donna Haraway asserts, is a “full partner in worlding, in becoming with” (301). Manohla Dargis sees White God as a parable about how “a faithful animal, separated from its loving owner, endures, suffers, struggles and resists while trying to transcend its brutal fate.” Hagen is certainly a loving dog who endures and resists, but he is also Lili’s companion species. Together they are “messmates at table, eating together, whether we know how to eat well or not” (Haraway 301). Haraway’s parting assertion regarding messmates is one “with a longing that it might be said of me someday what good agility players say of those whose runs they admire, ‘She has met her dog’” (301). By both disrupting and affirming that possibility, White God reveals the consequences of eco-trauma while offering a solution to its violent repercussions: a mutual longing between species.

White God, continued.

White God acknowledges and illustrates in detail the loving home Hagen must leave when Lili is forced to live with her father for three months. Before dropping Lili off at the slaughterhouse where dad works inspecting freshly slaughtered beef, Lili and her family share a picnic. Hagen seems joyful as he plays what New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis calls “a quietly portentous game of tug-of-war” with Lili. His tail wags as he adeptly catches and retrieves the toy. And the close relationship between the two continues even in Lili’s father’s cramped apartment, where she attempts to feed Hagen meat scraps from the table. Los Angeles reviewer Robert Abele calls Hagen “her true bestie, a lovable reddish-brown mutt.” Despite dad’s refusal to allow Hagen to sleep in Lili’s room, she preserves their bond by soothing Hagen with her trumpet in the bathroom where he’s trapped.

White God also shows the horrific conditions and experiences Hagen faces in the streets of Budapest. Although Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald suggests the first half of the film “plays like a spinoff of Babe: Pig in the City or a Disney movie about a lost pet fending for itself,” it also illustrates how Hagen’s former relationship with Lili transfers to other species. He sleeps under a bridge and searches for food and water, but he also seeks community, connecting with other dogs around the city. With a small canine companion, Hagen discovers a pack of dogs in a wet empty lot.

As a group, their intelligence seems to grow. Hagen and his companion dog “escape [] from a cleaver-wielding butcher tired of mongrels hanging outside his shop” (Abele). When animal control arrives, Hagen leads the dogcatchers away from the lot, so the other dogs can escape. Hagen and his pack adopt behaviors Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine Professors Ferdowsian and Merskin suggest parallel those of humans, including “avoidance behaviors” when they evade the dogcatchers who not only plan to force them into kennels at a crowded dog pound, but also seek to euthanize them as they routinely do in American animal shelters according to documentaries like One Nation Under Dog, City of Dogs, and Out of the Pit.

Hagen’s newfound freedom turns into a vengeful battle when a homeless man (János Derzsi) saves him from the officials but sells him to a dogfight coordinator to train. As Rodriguez declares, “Anyone who wasn’t able to sit through Amores Perros should take heed: What comes next isn’t easy to watch.” The trainer’s horrific tactics line up with those documented in Out of the Pit. First, he feeds Hagen sleeping pills and offers him protein injected with steroids when he awakens. Wearing a mask, the trainer beats Hagen while chained and builds his strength on a treadmill. He even sharpens his teeth. Drugged up on steroids, Hagen kills his dog opponent in his first fight. According to Abele’s review,

These scenes bond us to Hagen’s plight with unrelenting primacy. Filmed with the jagged energy of a Paul Greengrass nail-biter, they make clear that few films have ever so explicitly shown the daily threat to life for a creature left to fend for itself in a society that dismisses it as a beast designed for subjugation, abuse, and/or extermination.

Having maintained some connection to his canine comrades, however, Hagen finds a way to escape this abuse. He runs away back to the vacant lot where he finds his former little dog friend. When animal control captures and cages them, however, the dogs’ fates there depend on their responses to vicious shelter officials. When Hagen tries to attack a woman attempting to pet him, he is sentenced to death. Seemingly aware of his doom, Hagen again breaks out, freeing other caged dogs and stampeding over the woman who would have killed him and his pack, in a scene taken straight from the slave revolt in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). As Abele suggests, Hagen’s breakout is also a “reminder that the iconography of freedom and uprising needn’t only belong to humans.”

Despite the horrors he experiences, Hagen still searches for Lili, leading his gang of dogs into the concert hall where she is performing with her band. When she discovers Hagen and the pack’s entrance into the hall, Lili leads them away on the borrowed bicycle that opens the film. Instead of ending here, though, White God continues, showing the dogs knocking her down as they run on. Abele calls the scene “dreamlike…until scores of dogs careen around a corner, their bodies in full, magnificent motion.” With only her knee skinned, however, she gets back on her bike. Hagen makes no attempt to deliberately hurt his former companion.