Trauma and Isolation in Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow

Abstract

In this article, the authors analyze Claudia Llosa’s second film The Milk of Sorrow (2009) through the categories of trauma, its “embodiment”, and isolation, taking into account parallelisms with Claudia Llosa’s first film, Madeinusa (2005), where the isolation of the Andean town is a key factor in the fate of the protagonist. In The Milk of Sorrow, Fausta, also a female character, embodies the trauma caused by a heteronormative patriarchy of Andean and National origin accordingly. Her traumatic memory is tied to the isolated environment where she subsists. It is arguable that Llosa proposes that healing and insertion in a changing and dynamic city are only possible through breaking of the isolation, and liberating the individual from social and past constrictions.