Here is a thoughtful, restrained drama about one of the bloodiest periods during the long civil war in Guatemala, fought between US-backed rightwing generals and leftwing insurgents. In the 1980s, thousands of men, women and children were killed, mostly by soldiers. Our Mothers starts as a straightforward drama about families, decades later, still looking for relatives who disappeared in the massacres. But what emerges is a sensitive and moving portrait of female survivors – the clue is in the title.
In 2018, Ernesto (Armando Espitia) is a hard-working young government forensic investigator. Director Cesar Diaz follows Ernesto with a low-key documentary-like style as the young man goes about his job locating mass graves and exhuming bodies. One day, an indigenous woman, Nicolasa (Aurelia Caal), walks into his office with a familiar story: more than 30 years ago, soldiers tortured and killed the men in her farming village, then raped the women. Diaz handles the accounts of sexual violence with tremendous sensitivity, giving no more information than needed.
