AWFJ Presents SONG WITHOUT A NAME – Review by Diane Carson
Song Without a Name tells the tragic tale of abducted newborns in 1980s Peru
In Song Without a Name, Peruvian director Melina León with tender compassion tells a tragic tale of abducted newborns. Never hurried, the story, inspired by actual events, unfolds at a measured pace with maximum effect devoid of sensationalism since, clearly, none is needed for this repulsive crime. With the perfect choice of black and white cinematography, the images complement the 1988 time frame and the milieu of the twenty-year-old, indigenous Andean mother Georgina Condori Ñaupari.
She and her twenty-three-year-old partner Leo Quispe Ramos, both without official IDs, sell potatoes at the village market where the twenty-year-old, pregnant Georgina overhears a radio enticement that free medical care is available at a nearby hospital in Lima. Lured there by her need, she delivers a baby girl who is immediately whisked away. Hysterical and desperate, she and Leo attempt without success to file a report at the Palace of Justice, both caught in a bureaucratic quagmire. Appeals to an initially reluctant Pedro Campos, a reporter for the La Reforma newspaper, advance their cause as it uncovers institutional corruption in a Peru suffering from inflation over 100%, with 400% predicted by the end of the year in a society in violent turmoil. The pervasive, repressive political environment does not escape notice with several scenes involving rampant homophobia as well as retaliatory murders by Shining Path terrorists. For example, Pedro receives a death threat because he is gay as well as for his investigation of judicial and military support for baby abductions and sales, the babies most often sold in Europe.
Exquisite, metaphorically significant compositions telegraph the abhorrent victimization of this couple. For example, Georgina and Leo walk very slowly up steps to the entrance of the Palace of Justice, dwarfed by the huge columns of the imposing edifice. Similarly, the Justice hallway swallows them in its enormity as does the barren hillside to their isolated shack that, Sisyphus like, they must daily climb to or descend from. Presented in long distance, dimly lit shots with shallow focus, their ominous nightmare materializes with visual force. In public spaces, cinematographer Song Without a Name tells the tragic tale of abducted newborns in 1980s Peru
In Song Without a Name, Peruvian director Melina León with tender compassion tells a tragic tale of abducted newborns. Never hurried, the story, inspired by actual events, unfolds at a measured pace with maximum effect devoid of sensationalism since, clearly, none is needed for this repulsive crime. With the perfect choice of black and white cinematography, the images complement the 1988 time frame and the milieu of the twenty-year-old, indigenous Andean mother Georgina Condori Ñaupari.
She and her twenty-three-year-old partner Leo Quispe Ramos, both without official IDs, sell potatoes at the village market where the twenty-year-old, pregnant Georgina overhears a radio enticement that free medical care is available at a nearby hospital in Lima. Lured there by her need, she delivers a baby girl who is immediately whisked away. Hysterical and desperate, she and Leo attempt without success to file a report at the Palace of Justice, both caught in a bureaucratic quagmire. Appeals to an initially reluctant Pedro Campos, a reporter for the La Reforma newspaper, advance their cause as it uncovers institutional corruption in a Peru suffering from inflation over 100%, with 400% predicted by the end of the year in a society in violent turmoil. The pervasive, repressive political environment does not escape notice with several scenes involving rampant homophobia as well as retaliatory murders by Shining Path terrorists. For example, Pedro receives a death threat because he is gay as well as for his investigation of judicial and military support for baby abductions and sales, the babies most often sold in Europe.
Exquisite, metaphorically significant compositions telegraph the abhorrent victimization of this couple. For example, Georgina and Leo walk very slowly up steps to the entrance of the Palace of Justice, dwarfed by the huge columns of the imposing edifice. Similarly, the Justice hallway swallows them in its enormity as does the barren hillside to their isolated shack that, Sisyphus like, they must daily climb to or descend from. Presented in long distance, dimly lit shots with shallow focus, their ominous nightmare materializes with visual force. In public spaces, cinematographer Inti Briones regularly uses walls, bars, and other barriers to block our view just as official regulations and officials impede interrogation of the illegal kidnappings Georgina shares with other mothers. Further communicating that idea, low light—candles and oil lamps—invariably keep accurate, “confidential” information suppressed or withheld.
As Georgina, Pamela Mendoza, in many closeups, powerfully expresses the depths of despair. Because most of the scenes unfold without interpretive, background music, Pauchi Sasaki’s atonal score accompanying dire events lends added impact, as do the musical interludes interspersed at periodic junctures. Through masked performers and dances, celebrations provide welcome festive events while also offering insights into the Ayacuchan community, situated in the Chihuire town of the Peruvian Andes. They sing of their fortitude amidst sorrow and dance with infrequent relief.
In an introduction extra on Film Movement, director León explains that Song Without a Name offers an exploration that asks questions but resists providing answer. She notes that it is “about society and its cruelties, about our human condition,” adding that “it links all the forms of violence we perpetrate on each other,” that is, against women, indigenous people, the gay community, and the poor. Most tragically, this is just one example of hundreds of babies stolen and sold. Co-writer/director León (whose father was one of the investigating journalists) offers a chilling and important story, admirably told, with a concluding song that is haunting and heartbreaking. It clearly and poignantly encourages us, again in León’s words, “to be as sensitive as possible. . . to embrace the other.” Peru’s official 2021 Academy Awards submission for the Best International Feature Film, in Quechua and Spanish with English subtitles, Song Without a Name is available on the Film Movement website.
