Abstract
Since the 1990s, Peru has experienced a cinematographic explosion known as regional cinema. It is a rural, self-financed, low-budget cinema that, given the difficulties of being distributed in commercial theaters, is usually distributed through alternative circuits, mainly in the regions of Puno and Ayacucho. This chapter focuses on the cinema of Ayacucho, and more specifically on the horror genre, to analyze its role in the processes of memory, trauma and reconciliation in the region after the Internal Armed Conflict (1980–2000). The author argues that horror films from Ayacucho, though they do not explicitly address the war, have a direct relationship with the real terror experienced by the Indigenous communities during those decades. To this end, aspects such as the administration of difference, the epistemic relevance of orality in the context of multiculturalism, and, finally, the bio- and necropolitical dimension of war and the handling of bodies are examined.
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Notes
- 1.
There is a long cultural tradition that much of southeastern Peru is more connected with Argentina than with Lima. Thus, for example, the very name of the Ayacuchano filmmaker Palito Ortega reflects this trend, having been named after his namesake, the Argentine singer Palito Ortega (1941), who achieved his greatest fame in the 1960s. On Cuzco-Buenos Aires relations, see Elizabeth Kuon Arce et al. Cuzco-Buenos Aires. Ruta de intelectualidad americana (1900–1950) (Lima: Universidad de San Martín de Porres, 2008).
- 2.
The conflict began with the armed insurgency of Peru’s Communist Party, also known as Shining Path, against the Peruvian state. In a second stage of the conflict, the Túpac Amaru Movement started an urban guerrilla war against the central government in 1984.
- 3.
The film has two sequels with similar themes: Dios tarda pero no olvida 2 (God Comes Late But Does Not Forget 2) (Palito Ortega Matute 1999) and Sangre inocente (Innocent Blood) (Palito Ortega Matute 2000).
- 4.
The trilogy is comprised of Incesto en los Andes: La maldición de los jarjachas (Incest in the Andes: The Curse of the Jarjachas) (Palito Ortega 2002), La maldición de los jarjachas 2 (The Curse of the Jarjachas II) (Palito Ortega 2005) and El demonio de los Andes (The Demon of the Andes) (Palito Ortega 2014).
- 5.
In general, Ayacucho horror films are spoken in Spanish, but there are repeated interventions in Quechua or Quechuañol (a mixture of Quechua and Spanish).
- 6.
In this regard, it should be remembered that the historical process of incubation of the nations of the region involves a profuse and complex cultural plurality, which includes not only native peoples from different regions, but also Afro-descendants as well as continuous and successive waves of European, Asian and Middle Eastern immigration throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- 7.
The term is taken from José Bengoa’s La emergencia indígena en América Latina. (Santiago de Chile: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2007).
- 8.
The philosopher Luis Villoro refers to the Indigenous as “the most radical otherness.” Ensayos sobre indigenismo. Del indigenismo a la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2017), 103.
- 9.
See Ponciano del Pino, “Ayacuchano Cinema and the Filming of Violence: Interview with Palito Ortega Matute,”.
- 10.
The full quote: “These young people to whom you refer, are they also broaching the subject of political violence, or is it much more about customs and mythology?”
- 11.
See Kimberly Theidon, Intimate Enemies. Violence and Reconciliation in Peru.
- 12.
A mixture of Quechua and Spanish.
- 13.
The film most likely alludes to the tragic events of Uchuraccay, the Ayacucho town where eight journalists were mistaken for hikers and massacred by the villagers in 1983.
- 14.
Robin and Delacroix (2017) recount that the Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán (1934–2021) went so far as to ban Quechua in his indoctrination centers or “popular schools.”
- 15.
Here I understand necropolitics as described by Achille Mbembe, that is, as the inversion of the principles of bio-politics: make people live, let people die. In this way, necropolitics would be the capacity to “make people die and let people live.” See Ariadna Estévez (2018).
- 16.
- 17.
One of these illnesses, known as “la teta asustada,” (the frightened breast) is the belief that a woman who has suffered extreme violence during pregnancy transmits fear to her child through breastfeeding. Peruvian Claudia Llosa’s film of the same name, which in English-speaking countries was translated as The Milk of Sorrow, was inspired by the stories collected by Theidon.
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Huertas Pérez, José Gabriel. Nakaq. Peru: Luis Aguilar, 2003.
Llosa, Claudia. La teta asustada. Peru and Spain: Vela Producciones, Oberón Cinematográfica, Wanda Visión, 2009.
Martínez Gamboa, José. Pishtaco. Peru: Magnum Producciones, 2003.
Ortega Matute, Palito. Dios tarda pero no olvida 2. Peru: 1998
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———. El demonio de los Andes. Star Films, Peru Movie EIRL, 2014.
Parra Bello, Lalo. Pueblo maldito, el mal está dentro de ti. Peru: Amaru Producciones, Magic Productions, 2013.
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Ledesma, D.C. (2023). Minor Cinemas, Major Issues: Horror Films and the Traces of the Internal Armed Conflict in Peru. In: Coryat, D., León, C., Zweig, N. (eds) Small Cinemas of the Andes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32018-7_15
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