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Guatemala, France · 2015
1h 33m
Director Jayro Bustamante
Starring María Mercedes Coroy, María Telón, Manuel Antún, Justo Lorenzo
Genre Drama
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María, a 17-year-old Kaqchikel Maya, lives with her parents on a coffee plantation at the foot of an active volcano. She is set to be married to the farm's foreman, but María longs to discover the world on the other side of the mountain, a place she cannot even imagine.
Village Voice by Alan Scherstuhl
Even as it verges on melodrama, Ixcanul remains fascinated by its people's practical thinking, by how their contemporary circumstances — and occasionally premodern beliefs — lead to actions both relatable and achingly, disastrously not.
Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene
The film's structure, however stifling, is filled with gorgeous imagery and nuanced symbolism.
Guatemala’s first-ever entry for the foreign language Oscar is an absorbing, beautifully-shot drama of cultural ritual and the drive of one young woman to escape a rudimentary social system.
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
What’s most striking about Ixcanul is the elegant way in which it is shot. Scenes are given space, and the audience is allowed ample time to soak up the atmosphere.
Screen International by Lee Marshall
Much credit too must go the actors, all non-professionals who were discovered by the director via community meetings and theatre workshops. There’s no Brechtian alienation here: these are committed yet unmannered performances that help to flesh out what might otherwise be a thin story.
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
This is a decidedly small-scale tragedy, but it still packs a cumulative wallop.
The Hollywood Reporter by Neil Young
A solid example of low-key, well-observed, humanistically sympathetic ethnography.
The Playlist by Nikola Grozdanovic
Steeped in a culture rarely observed on screen, Bustamante's film has the airs of a documentary. Its ensemble cast of local actors have zero trace of affectation in their performances.
Ixcanul may struggle to tackle the larger issue it posits but well represents the lives and rituals of the marginalised community it seeks to give a voice.
What emerges, finally, is a film that gives an urgent, original voice to a people too frequently marginalized in both movies and society at large.
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