Set in 19th century Mexico, Alfonso Otero Mireles’ tense horror short is nothing short of haunting. It focuses on a set of sisters as they wait for childbirth to come for one of them. What follows is a beautifully short and unsettling folktale that is something to behold.
Set in a gorgeous Mexican villa, the film is a bit tough to explain, as it’s a bit esoteric with its storytelling. That’s not a knock on the film, however, as it tells the story of these sisters as they wait in isolation for childbirth, all of them going through their own terrifying experiences. The only real difficulty that was had when watching this film is that as a non-Spanish speaker, the film lacks subtitles, which made following dialog pretty challenging. It doesn’t take away from any of the performances or visual storytelling, however, and it’s still pretty clear as to what Mireles is showing. Or at least no more difficult than any story that relies a lot on the ethereal and sometimes inexplicable nature of the horror genre.
A translation from the film’s introduction gives a lot of context for what happens over the course of the film, as it takes place during the Mexican-American War, which drove out many native Mexicans, causing them to flee their homes. Those who remained were seen as cursed, living in an abandoned land besieged by war. This backdrop can lend a lot of information to not only how these people were feeling during this time period, but also to what the film is trying to say about those who remained, living in fear, without many nearby to lean on for support and the anxiety of war coming to their doorstep. Being pregnant would make fleeing difficult, causing these three sisters to remain, with no one but each other to lean on.
The performances from Alejandra Otero, Anna Daniela and Ana Paula Lancaster are all superb, with Otero pulling double duty as a credited co-writer of the film. They display the terror of isolation and the trepidation the process of childbirth with expert facial expressions and truly giving off the understanding that in this time period, childbirth was not only much more painful of a process, but significantly more brutal and gory as well.
Even without understanding the dialog, this film does an excellent job of ramping up tension, as we see the boredom and disdain of the remote location these sisters are going through, and how it begins to turn much darker, the isolation causing them to seemingly not trust the things around them.
Overall, this film is gorgeous, dark and tense, with stellar acting, and directing that really amplifies the way that the story is presented. The historical context of the story makes it even more upsetting, as the realities of which this story is derived is almost as scary as any trick of the mind or folktale of curses. The entire cast and crew should be commended on making such a beautifully haunting film that was such a joy to watch.
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