When Oscar Katakura’s “Wiñaypacha” (“Immortality”) was released in 2017, it was the first feature film to be made entirely in Aymara, the language of the Aymara people in the Andean region. A poetic exploration of a changing world grounded in the beautiful views of that often inhospitable landscape, heralded the young Peruvian writer-director (barely 30 at the time) as a promising talent. Sadly, Katakura passed away in 2021 when he had just begun production on his next series, “Yana-Wara”. His producing partner and uncle, Teito Katakura, finished the intriguing tale of justice in a small indigenous community that lacks the raw lyricism of the younger Katakura’s earlier work.
“Yana-Wara” is named after its central character, a young orphan girl who is found dead. The question is not whether her grandfather Don Evaristo (Cecilio Quispe Ch.) killed her. This is very clear. It’s about whether and to what extent his killing of his teenage granddaughter (played by Luz Diana Mamami) was justified and punished – and, in both cases, to what extent. The question is being put to a council of indigenous leaders who clearly want justice for what happened. They dealt with the tragic backstory of Yana-Wara, a girl who, if we are to believe Don Evaristo, would have lived a life of suffering had he not intervened.
From the moment of her birth, it seemed that Yana Wara was cursed. Her mother died in childbirth and her father died years later, leaving her in the care of Don Evaristo. The old man treated the unusually quiet girl rashly, not sure how best to take care of her. By the time he leaves her in the care of the local school where he hopes she will flourish, he has had to deal with the fact that her teacher Santiago (Jose D. Calisaya) is abusing his position to take advantage of her.
Santiago completely violates Yana Wara in the classroom (in a scene that was tastefully shot to avoid showing viewers the rape that actually occurs off-camera). The pregnant Yana Wara, silent and emotionless if not more so than before, forces her small community to deal with Santiago’s crime in a way that will no doubt baffle North American audiences—but tests the ways in which the film aims. To portray the fraught justice system of the Aymara people with complete frankness.
Completely immersed in the world of the Aymara people, “Yana-Wara” blends the mystical and the mundane. He transforms Don Evaristo’s account of his granddaughter’s life into a story of evil committed by both humans and nature, by fallible systems and terrifying spirits. The film was shot in black and white (by Katacoras and Julio Gonzalez F.), and is beautiful to look at. The rock formations, majestic mountains and misty views make for some indelible images. In fact, a film is often better when it lets its natural setting stand on its own. The Andean landscape, devoid of its natural greenery, is transformed here into a solitary backdrop that sometimes makes “Yana Wara” seem like a horror film in which lurking evil can be found both in the caves and in the lustful gazes of the men.
The Yana-Wara may have become a victim of the Anchanchu, an evil force that causes endless tragedies to those it pursues (so insists Don Evaristo). But it’s also clear that she suffers just as much at the hands of the men who rule her life. It was the man who loved her, after all, who ultimately took her life, no matter how merciful he thought that choice was.
The ambiguous moral questions that “Yana-Wara” grapples with (particularly as it marginalizes its central female character, deliberately obscuring if not completely ignoring her inner core) would be more interesting and fleshed out if Katakuras’ film had stronger performances. As in “Wynaypacha,” Oscar and Tito chose to work with non-professional actors, members of the community who were undoubtedly chosen to bring a sense of authenticity to this harrowing story. However, with the exception of Mamame’s work, which keeps Yana Wara at arm’s length by offering ambiguous facial expressions meant to allow characters and viewers alike to read into her behavior however one might wish, the bulk of the performers here give quite subtle performances.
There’s an awkwardness to their acting all the time. Kalisaya, in particular, never sells the complexity of his violent and abusive teacher. All of this works against the story being told. This is a mythical tale about competing ideas about justice and agency, about mercy and fate—about gender violence and the very choices men continue to make about women’s lives. However, the complexities inherent in such questions – in Yana Wara’s life, really – are rarely illuminated in these self-conscious performances.
One can’t help but wonder what “Yana-Wara” would have looked like in the hands of the young Peruvian director had he lived to complete the film. On the page, Katakura’s text is interesting, asking thorny questions that cut across cultural differences in deliberately uncomfortable ways. However, the final film never lives up to the difficult questions it raises. This melancholy vision of the Aymara people, transfixed by the actions of their actors, remains elusive, more powerful as a provocation on paper than as a morality tale on screen.