Rita

There is a secret language that only girls of a certain age know, a way of being that is magical and mystical and full of strange beauty and terror, or so it would seem. Outsiders mock it, belittling those who speak it; but nevertheless it persists, because girls know that they will be mocked no matter what they do. Others, monstrous adults, fetishise it, putting it on a pedestal only to crush it when given the chance; but nevertheless it persists, because fragile as it may seem, it is born of resistance, creating a space for those denied the chance to flourish in the world at large. This language suffuses Jayro Bustamante’s latest piece of cinema of resistance. It restores breath and light and dignity to girls who are no longer a part of the world. There is blistering anger in its melange of baubles and feathers and tulle.

It has been more that seven years since the fire at the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home in San José Pinula, Guatemala. 41 girls died that night. They had never expected that they would all survive. Drawing on conversations with the few survivors, and with other girls from other institutions across the country who had faced the same forms of abuse, Bustamante’s fictional work recreates some of the events that led up to the blaze. It does so through a magical realist narrative which brings elements of the girls’ fantastical beliefs to life, helping viewers to understand their value as a survival tool. We enter this narrative through Rita (Giuliana Santa Cruz), who is detained in the home following a vain attempt to rescue her younger sister from the clutches of their abusive father.

Rita is assigned to become an angel, though she will have to earn a proper set of wings. A brutal hazing ritual on her first night leaves her battered and bleeding, but there’s a reason for that, much darker than she initially suspects. The angels are her clan, and will protects her. In the hallways and canteen and sewing sweatshop where they spend their daytime hours, she sees girls with bunny ears; others with small flowers and ragged fairy wings; a fourth pack with small white tiaras; another with patchy grey feathers and skies, some wearing muzzles. To be an angel is something special, she learns, because there is a prophecy that one day a saviour angel will come. In the middle of the night, she sees men come and drag a screaming, struggling angel away in a net. There are rituals for dealing with this too; rituals of healing and psychological aftercare – but the girls know that to get justice, they will need to do something a lot more drastic.

If aspects of the story sound familiar, that may be because another film, Oscar-nominated 2020 short Saria, also addressed the story of what happened at the Virgen de la Asunción institution. Where it was necessarily spare and stark, however, Bustamante’s take acknowledges but does not indulge the horror, seeking instead to celebrate those who fought back by taking ownership of the way their abusers imagined them, subverting it through their own creativity. In doing so, it portrays forms of strength rarely given their due in cinema. With literally hundreds of girls in some scenes, it’s chaotic, sometimes wild with emotion, but Santa Cruz’s powerful performance keeps viewers’ attention where it needs to be. There is good support from Alejandra Vásquez, a young actor with Down syndrome whose character literally takes Rita under her wing.

Lulú Salgado’s art direction is spectacular, and the actors brought a lot of creativity of their own. When we reel back to the reality of prison-like rooms, locked doors, violent guards and the grubby office where the girls are taken to be photographed and catalogued, the effect is chilling. Many Guatamalans are yet to accept the reality of what happened in the home, or in so many others – worldwide, at least a third of children sent to orphanages suffer at least one incident of abuse – but Rita is already making an impact, speaking with a voice that will not be denied.