User reviews

Winner of the first award at the Berlinale, La teta asustada is the second film made by Claudia Llosa, director of the brilliant and exotic Madeinusa. The movie shows an interesting picture of a village in Peru, the life of a family, the things they do to earn a living, and the fears of Fausta, a girl whose mother taught her the power of songs to send away tears.Fausta keeps a secret, and she wants no one to discover it. Meanwhile, he tries to save money to make a wish come true.Magaly Solier plays a gorgeous role, like she did in Madeinusa, and makes us share her feelings through her eyes and her voice. Besides, the film shows the customs of a family and the way every member helps doing his best with a smile. Don't miss it.

Our heroine is called Fausta, a girl who is full of fear. "The Milk of Sorrow" or, more exactly "The Frightened Tit" is, in the Peruvian-indigenous tradition, an illness, is being condemned to be a coward. Peru's late History was influenced by guerrilla's warfare and state brutality. Women (like Fausta's mother) were raped, and raped women got sick... of fear. through her mother's milk Fausta is afraid of life, but she is by no mean a coward, because after her mother dies, her struggle is by herself. This movie is beautiful, it combines a very, very strong performance from Magaly Solier, and a universal human struggle in a very typical Latin American city.

I can see that or why many people will like this movie. There is the very great portrayal of the main actress, there is running theme in here that speaks to many art-house fans (even those who may not know that they are).

The pacing might seem awkward, some twists in the story line and/or character arc, might not be accessible to some viewers, but all those things make the movie even better. At least that's how I see it. Still as this is a movie that provokes or encourages you to think a lot, there might come up a few questions, story-wise and or character-wise that might leave you with a slightly bad taste.

And although up until now the review the user GeneralGrievous gave hasn't received positive feedback, you have to cut the guy some slack. If you read his review, you can understand why he didn't like the movie quite as much. I thought his review was helpful, even though I don't agree on everything he writes, because he explains not only why he thinks that way, but he gives a few glimpses into his knowledge of Peruvian film-making.

Writer/director Claudia Llosa loosely adapts the premise of old-time classics 'The Little Mermaid' and 'Faust' to contemporary Peru. Fausta, beautifully played by Magaly Solier, is a solitary, indigenous girl whose heart is gripped by fear. Her mother, who we see on her deathbed at the start of the film, was raped and scarred for life by The Shining Path (a radical Maoist organization that terrorized Peru during the 80s and early 90s). According to their indigenous culture, the terror felt by Fausta's mother was passed on to her through breastfeeding, a condition they call 'The Milk of Sorrow' (in Spanish, 'La Teta Asustada', which translates to 'The Frightened Tit'). Fausta is deeply suspicious of people around her, particularly men, and expresses her repressed emotions only through singing, as she performs her daily chores. Desperately in need for money to bury her dead mother, she begins to work as a housekeeper for Aida, a musician who is preparing for a concert and becomes interested in her songs of sorrow.

Llosa observes the social realities of Latin America (post-colonialism, class division, political violence), but avoids providing facile solutions. Instead, she focuses her attention on Fausta's more personal need for spiritual freedom. She does so with quiet, subtle humor and an eye for striking, poetic imagery.

I highly recommend watching this Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film and winner of the Berlin International Film Festival.

Fausta Isidora (Magaly Solier) is a weird young woman that lives permanently scared in a poor community in Lima. Her mother was raped by many men when she was pregnant of Fausta, and raised her daughter with a morbid fear of men. When her mother dies, Fausta has a bleeding and faints. Her uncle takes her to the doctor that finds that she keeps a potato inside her vagina to protect her against intercourse. Her uncle tells to the doctor that in accordance with the lore of the locals, she has a disease called "La Teta Assustada" (meaning "The Frightened Teat" in English) transmitted by the milk of an abused pregnant woman. Fausta decides to bury her mother in her home village, but neither she nor her uncle has the necessary amount for the coffin and the transportation. Fausta starts working as housemaid in the manor of a pianist to raise the necessary money; she befriends the gardener that helps her and Fausta finally resolves her issues.

"La Teta Assustada" is an exotic but boring and unpleasant low budget movie. The story is developed in slow-pace and probably will please viewers of the First World that maybe have never seen a slum and poor people like the dweller of Fausta's community. Magaly Solier has a great performance and her exotic beauty is impressive. The translation of the title of this film to English ("The Milk of Sorrow") is ridiculous since the correct translation would be "The Frightened Teat". The summary in IMDb from Pusan International Film Festival is ridiculous and the author has certainly not understood the story; or maybe the translation from Spanish was wrong. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Teta Assustada" ("The Frightened Teat")

Young director Claudia Llosa (Madeinusa) has won the Golden Bear and a dozen of other prizes around the world for her second work, The frightened tit, its original Spanish tittle.

Though the plot itself may seem awkward, the movie is a group of 95 minutes rich and beautiful images. The pearls, the potato, the dog, the wedding, the impoverished suburban Lima, everything is accurately directed and carefully thought by Ms. Llosa.

Fausta (outstanding Magaly Solier) is suffering from The frightened tit, an illness that she caught through her mother's breast-milk since her pregnancy happened during the 1980s and 90s terrorism and State violence in the Andes. Now in Lima, Fausta is afraid, she's put a potato in her vagina in order to protect her from being raped, and after her mother dies she finally has to deal with the real life and face her fears,starting to work in a high- class house as a made.

The plot of the movie is fictitious, but it lies on a cruel and past reality of Peru's modern history, combining it with a delicate halo of surrealism, magic realism and sometimes ironic humor. The image of the potato -all time Peruvian ingredient for cuisine- involves the subject of a war and a fear that affected an entire country, though our differences may not accept it yet. The scenes in Fausta's home are the opposite where she works: though the high-class house is in the same impoverished area (another reference to Peruvian social differences), over there is no gray, no dust: there are plants, color, life.

At the end, Fausta realizes that in the root of her fears is the solution of them. The movie, indeed, is presented as a cure for the unhealed wounds of a terrible and recent war that happened on Peruvian soil.

Claudia Llosa writes a peculiar, but captivating story of a young Peruvian girl living in a constant world of fear on the outskirts of Lima. Fausta is believed to be suffering from a rare disease, "La teta asustada," or the "Milk of Sorrow," which was transmitted from her mother's breast milk after she was raped by terrorists during the time of Sendero Luminoso. Facing her mother's death, Fausta is forced to overcome her fear and work in the Big House of a limeña musician. While both the music and filming are stunning, I feel that the film lacks much action or thick plot. I found it to be more of a journey, one that led Fausta from her fear to a glimpse of her freedom. Furthermore, as a viewer who has lived in Peru, the film was very nostalgic for me and I felt that it portrayed Lima and the "pueblos" with a profound sincerity.

If you are looking for a poetic and beautiful journey of a story, this film is exactly that.

I was so touched by this film, which is obviously a low budget production. It proves that you do not need a multi-billion budget to make a good movie. I think only women can understand fully the pain and the fear the heroine had to go through. I wonder if they produce a sound track for the movie. The songs by the heroine and that sonata adopted by the pianist were beautiful. Solier is a great actress and her facial features, well, what can I say, is not the kind of glamour you find on screens. She has character, reflecting her heritage. I immediately take a liking of her from the first few scenes.I It is disturbing to find people snubbing such a beautiful movie but I guess everyone to his/her tase.

This movie had a truly original plot that at times felt a little unbelievable. The characters themselves were believable and an interesting twist was that half of the movie was in a local dialect rather than Spanish. The protagonist, Fausta, believes that she is condemned to a life of fear because her mother was raped while she was pregnant with her. This fear was transferred to her from her mother's 'teta asustada' according to Peruvian superstition. Some parts of the movie, like her mother's burial, are drawn out for longer than they should and do not add to the storyline. The songs that Fausta sings are a nice addition to the soundtrack and add an interesting subplot. It is a movie that I am glad that I watched but I don't think I'll watch it again.

Fausta's aged mother passes away, singing a song that tells of horrific suffering in the not-so-distant past. That suffering has been passed on to her daughter through, according to local folklore, her mother's breast milk. With a potato inserted in her vagina, Fausta hopes to ward off the ugly indignities inflicted on her mother. Fausta's poverty, both material and spiritual, is thrown into sharp relief when she gets work as a housekeeper at the home of a wealthy and celebrated, but arid musician. The musician draws Fausta's song from her. And so, she begins to sing. This is a slow-burn film that offers startling images at time, and is strongest in its representation of the rituals of courtship, marriage and death. There is a rhythm and intensity to these scenes, a beguiling charm, that is disarming. Less successful are the long takes of Fausta (Magaly Solier) staring off into space when in the throes of her existential plight. The film goes after an imagistic rather than narrative experience and only partly succeeds. A dense film, in fact impenetrable at times, it offers strong symbolism, gritty ethnographic authenticity, but ultimately demands patience that it fails to completely reward, Magaly Solier's intensity failing to compensate for the plodding pace.

La teta asustada is not, quite understandably, everyone's cup of tea. It is a slow, pensive, drawn-out film that almost feels like an ominous daydream. There is much that goes unsaid, and if you are not familiar with the Sendero Luminoso insurgency in Peru and the enormous amount of political violence perpetrated by both rebel and government forces, the underlying forces driving the film will not make that much sense. This is particularly the case with the rather disturbing opening scene and the graphic account of the rape of the protagonist's (Fausta) mother. There are also dynamics of class, gender, language, and race at work in this film, and the interplay between them is best understood with some prior knowledge of Peru, or Latin America more generally. The opening scene and the revelation that Fausta has placed a potato in her vagina to protect her from rape would be enough to turn many people off from the beginning of the film, and for good reason. Yet this film, to its credit, in my view, refuses to be anything other than what it is – an exploration of the legacy of trauma and fear of the Sendero Luminoso insurgency and the violence that came along with it. I enjoyed this film, but I appreciate films that are slow, melancholy, and leave plenty of time for pondering. It is not necessarily a feel-good movie, but felt more like a gloomy, ambiguous French film. It had more sad moments than happy ones, although that is only fitting of a film with such a dark topic at its heart. Yet there was something bizarrely hopeful about the film, and regardless of how bad Fausta's situation may have seemed, she showed admirable courage, and a faint light does appear at the end of the tunnel.

A realistic portrayal of the impoverished suburbia of Lima, Peru is the frame-set for this fantastic story. Fausta, daughter of a woman raped by terrorists some 25 years ago, assists her mother's death and decides to take her remains back to her hometown, in the high Andes. But, apart from having to work hard to collect the money she needs for it, Fausta has a reason, deep inside, that prevents her from enjoying life or accepting her outstanding physical beauty as a normal girl.

Mastery at low-budget cinematic skill should be credited to Bollywood (the Mumbai-based Hindi language film industry) films, which may not be the most groundbreaking in technical or screen writing terms, but contain music in the form of song-and-dance numbers woven into the script in order to appeal to all segments of the audience and maximise box office receipts. Since Hollywood's multi-million budgets would never have helped shoot realistic and colourful, but rough Brazilian imagery, 'Central Station' (1998) and 'Cidade de Deus' (2002) garnered indisputable acclaim at renowned film festivals after being funded on their own. The example set by off-Hollywood movie makers' efforts have become heroic in countries where movie industry budgets are, to say the least, scarce.

This is the case for LTA. It could have been more on par to Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' if it wasn't for the Peruvian-Spanish meagre budget available to Peruvian young director Claudia Llosa. If you expect to see acting beaus or beautés, famous screenwriters and crew, expensive car explosions or CGI, go elsewhere. LTA is neat magic-realism, a territory where people may be poor but not disgusting, where their houses are mere recreation centres for fantasy and everyday life to play happily together. Only time will tell if the trend keeps up, spreads globally, and ends up being called Globbywood.

This is a well-told tale of hope where only two professional actors are involved. And this was as clear to Berlinale judges as it is for the general public -those with a thirst for veritable, honest, witty craftsmanship at film-making.

La teta asustada (or Milk of Sorrow) tells the story of Fausta, a young woman who suffers from the indigenous sickness of being condemned to live in fear forever. Terrorists raped her mother while she was pregnant and imparted her fear to Fausta through her breast milk. The strange awkwardness of the story is uncomfortable at times, but the audience slowly adjusts. This is the famous magical realism that Latin America is known for: the mixing of reality and fantasy in such a way that the impossible starts to seem more and more normal and possible.

Having lived and studied in Lima for ten months, although it doesn't make me an expert, I found the film to be an accurate portrayal of life in the impoverished suburbs of the capital city. Mostly indigenous people fleeing from the mountains where terrorism was threatening them settled these dusty settlements on the outskirts of Lima in the 80s and 90s. In these communities indigenous traditions are still practiced and cherished to this day, but as portrayed in the movie there is also the clash of cultures as the people struggle to integrate into the life of the big city of Lima.

I enjoyed this movie because it reminded me of all things Peruvian: the scenery, the struggles, the mix of indigenous and modern cultures and the ever important role of the potato.

The Milk of Sorrow. It's a bit like a very long bus trip to a far away destination, through a barren, deserted landscape. You drive along for hours, and nothing much happens. You gaze out of the window at the rocks and dirt, the dirt and rocks. Then whoosh, out of nowhere, a man on a white stallion, wearing a sombrero and carrying a machine gun gallops past in the opposite direction. You only see him for a few seconds, then he's gone, and you're left wondering if it really happened.

Well, perhaps that's a bit unfair. But The Milk of Sorrow is slow. I've nothing against slow films. In fact, I usually prefer them, but even by slow film standards, it's pretty slow. And although it's only 95 minutes long, it could probably have been done in an hour.

It's a peculiar little story. Set in present day Peru, there is only one main character, a young Peruvian peasant woman called Fausta. We open with Fausta witnessing the dying moments of her mother. She is now a very old lady, and she recounts through song how her husband was murdered, and she was raped while pregnant with Fausta. The real-life historical context to this is Peru in the 1980s, when Shining Path terrorist activities were at their height, and peasants were subject to their brutal violence. Now in her early twenties, and living with her uncle, Fausta is infected with the milk of sorrow. The milk of sorrow is believed to be a disease she contracted through drinking her mother's breast milk, and has caused her soul to be lost.

The only emotion Fausta feels is fear. Consquently, she won't go anywhere alone, and that is a problem. She wants to take her mother's body back to her village so that she can be buried with her father. But that costs money. Her uncle is already poor, and his priority is taking care of the living. Fausta is forced to face her fear and go out to work. She takes a job at the Big House, where she meets Aída, the sympathetic Lady of the House, and Noé, the kindly gardener. However, the only results of Aida and Noés' gentle attempts to coax Fausta into a more normal existence are long, empty minutes of gazing into space, leaning against walls, and watching television.

While the script is horribly thin, The Milk of Sorrow does have several redeeming features. The photography is usually beautiful and manages to show both the romance and desolation of Peru. The portrayal of day-to-day life for your average working class Peruvian, is completely realistic in its banality. The insight into the superstitious beliefs of peasants is convincing. There are wonderful flashes of ironic humour. And as a tiny cameo of a piece of real history it is very moving.

I wish it was better. It can't be easy being a filmmaker in Peru. Given the limited budget, and few resources, The Milk of Sorrow is a remarkable achievement. But, much as I want to like it, the script doesn't offer much to get hold of. I'm sure that the nomination in the 2010 Oscars for Best Foreign Language film will have given the film industry in Peru an enormous boost. That is A Good Thing. But is this really one of the world's best foreign language films of 2009?

I _hated_ this movie, and every positive review I read about it makes me feel like I'm the child in the middle of _The Emperor's New Clothes_. There are so many aspects to film-making that go into producing great art, and if a film only hits 5% of those, it falls far below even the minimum standard. While I found LTA executed well technically (the ONLY reason I give it a "2" instead of a "1"), I found the tone self-indulgent and condescending. The characters and indigenous culture are so poorly sketched that even as someone intimately acquainted with Lima and its socio-economic complications, I found I had no empathy or feeling for what should have been a tragic tale. Very poorly written, the actors struggle to breathe life into this CORPSE of a script. I felt an abstract,near- hatred towards the ignorance and denial portrayed in the film, and doubly so towards Llosa for wasting 2hrs of my life AGAIN. I only dipped my toe into her suffocatingly shallow film-making because it was nominated for an Oscar. I sorely regret it and am appalled that LTA is being dolled-up as though it's on par w/ _Un Prophète_ or _El Secreto de Sus Ojos_. I'm an art-house, foreign film junkie, but _The Hangover_ was better than this tripe. At least I wasn't tricked into thinking it was good by rave reviews and awards.