The legend of La Llorona is fairly straightforward. A mother scorned by her thoughtless husband seeks an unthinkable revenge. Hoping to cut him to the emotional bone, she drowns their children in the river. Immediately regretful, the Weeping Woman joins her offspring in death, inadvertently dooming herself to an eternity of sorrow. Dressed in white, she’s said to lurk around bodies of water searching for her beloved sons. If she can’t find them, she’ll steal other children, dragging them to their own watery deaths.
This vilified woman may not loom large over the horror genre, but she does front a handful of disparate films. Some eschew the water element entirely, finding new ways to depict infanticide. Others present her as just another sinister figure populating a demonic world. Jayro Bustamante’s La Llorona repurposes this distressing tale to revisit a devastating chapter in Guatemalan history. Rather than a solitary woman weeping for her lost children, his La Llorona weeps for the hundreds of thousands killed in the Mayan Genocide.
In the latest episode of Bloody Disgusting’s Murder Made Fiction podcast, Jenn and Joe conclude their coverage of the La Llorona legend with Bustamante’s powerful film. They’ll discuss pathetic men, complicit women, and the inescapable consequences of large-scale violence.
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The post Jayro Bustamante’s “La Llorona” Weeps for a Shattered World [Murder Made Fiction Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
