Ixcanul is a film of subdued collisions, some literal, some shaped as near metaphorical matches. A boar drinking rum to get horny, a woman mothering piglets. Magic fables and dreams clashing with breaches of striking realism, our vulnerable humanity with the harshness of nature. But also, on a note that will prove to be familiar to Bustamante’s oeuvre, the natives’ culture, and language, versus that of the conquistadores.
Looming over the hustling of its characters, are the themes of exploitation and the difficult dialogue history brought to the contemporary Guatemalan society.
Ironically echoing a scene of La Llorona, Ixcanul ends with a closeup on a beautiful Kaqchikel woman—only this time a veil is dropped on her face. It is tempting to lose ourselves in the depth of her firm stare before it’s shut and feel the rumbling of the volcano, or the bite of its creatures.