{"id":98,"date":"2018-04-19T20:12:53","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T00:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/?p=98"},"modified":"2018-04-19T20:12:53","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T00:12:53","slug":"analysis-of-ixcanul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/2018\/04\/19\/analysis-of-ixcanul\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis of Ixcanul"},"content":{"rendered":"

The film Ixcanul<\/em>, written and directed by Jayro Bustamante is a story about a poor indigenous family that lives on a coffee plantation in Central America. The story\u2019s protagonist Mar\u00eda is arranged to be married off to Ignacio, the plantation\u2019s supervisor, when she decides to seduce Pepe, a farm-hand who also picks coffee. Pepe is secretly planning to flee to the United States in hopes of a better life and Mar\u00eda is mesmerized by his dream of emigrating. After finding out she\u2019s pregnant, Mar\u00eda\u2019s life takes a dramatic turn full of exploitation and mistreatment.<\/p>\n

Ixcanul<\/em> is beautiful. For one, the cinematography is incredible. Especially the shots that include the active volcano, Ixcanul<\/em> in the film\u2019s background emphasizing the volcano\u2019s crucial role in the life of Mar\u00eda and her family. For example, a scene early in the film shows Mar\u00eda and her mother worshiping the volcano praying for safety and security. Another positive critique with the cinematography is the key moments where the camera angle shows both Mar\u00eda and her mother walking through the coffee plantation trails and an asphalt road parallel to the plantation\u2019s border. Angle\u2019s such as this juxtapose modernism and barbarism or the civilized against the uncivilized. It\u2019s obvious that Mar\u00eda\u2019s family is unfairly judged by the government agent and the medical staff in the hospital. The discrimination is entirely based on their ethnicity.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Marie\u2019s lover, Pepe, who flees to the United State even sides against his own culture and ethnicity. In private Pepe says to Mar\u00eda, \u201cIt\u2019s people like you who keep us stuck here\u201d. Pepe desires worldly pleasures, he dreams of a big house with a garden and a car and does not want to live a coffee farmer his entire life. The only negative critique I have of this film is the hypersexuality stereotype of the indigenous people. This portrayal may have been about a lack of education in the community but certain scenes such as the scene in which Mar\u00eda humps a tree in the forest just before seducing Pepe came across in poor taste.<\/p>\n

The film could be seen as a question about nationality and how race and ethnicity are tie people to specific identifies. Even though Pepe is from the same community as Mar\u00eda he identifies as something beyond his ethnicity, almost as if he resents it. However, Mar\u00eda and the modernized people [government workers, hospital staff, public claims office employees, etc.] are citizens of the same country, yet Mar\u00eda and her family are exploited because of their indigenous ethnicity. The doctor refusing to communicate to Mar\u00eda\u2019s parents or accept the mother\u2019s shawl as a token of gratitude in the hospital displays in-group and out-group mentality. The situation is similar to the treatment of Amabella by Senora Valencia in Edwidge Danticat\u2019s The Farming of Bones. <\/em>Amabella is constantly reminded of her Haitian ethnicity and blackness despite living with a Dominican family in the Dominican Republic and is treated differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The film Ixcanul, written and directed by Jayro Bustamante is a story about a poor indigenous family that lives on a coffee plantation in Central America. The story\u2019s protagonist Mar\u00eda is arranged to be married off to Ignacio, the plantation\u2019s supervisor, when she decides to seduce Pepe, a farm-hand who also picks coffee. Pepe is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,27,15],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","tag-ethnicity","tag-nationality","tag-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.scranton.edu\/hist327\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}