CHILDREN OF THE MOON

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Text written by Anto Astudillo back in 2020 about Coyolxauhqui by Colectivo Los Ingrávidos in the context of corrient.es online film series. https://www.corrient.es/ingravidos-astudillo-eng

COYOLXAUHQUI (english)

“The first minutes of Coyolxauhqui are full of fertile landscapes, fruits, flowers and insects from this area that are a reflection of the abundance of the land. In this piece, more than in others, out of focus or soft focus is introduced, softening the contours and allowing an ambiguity to be generated in the shapes. Little by little, bursts of fruits appear in focused close-ups. The images play in between these hard and soft extremes. The filmic experimentations of Los Ingrávidos take us into natural worlds that have been disrupted by the magic invoked between light and film (the layers of crystals). Once entered, the obscurities of the Aztec culture emerge as antecedents maintained in a present judgment. The night falls in silence. The tragic destinies of goddesses and gods are revealed in direct connection with the tragedies of the Mexican people and their vulnerable characters. Women, and any body that identifies as or appears docile, feminine, queer, androgynous, trans, are exposed to a history covered by the patriarchy. Dresses, high heels, wallets, bras, panties, long hair, all these iconic garments appear as torn symbols, scattered on the ground or hanging from the high branches of a tree that further darkens this trampled inheritance of shadows. The cries for help are muffled but footprints appear when light shines. Silence is scratched and these in turn sing in contralto. From above, our mothers and sisters lament. The earth will always be a witness to our acts of abandonment, regardless of our wish to forget, regardless of how many times they make us disappear.

The presence of multiple exposures thins each visual layer and makes it more fragile. A suggested abundance represented by fruits and other offerings is superimposed on images of the sky, the sea, the earth and their creations. And on the plane of suggestion the edge of a knife appears. The sound creates suspense. A disjointed text is heard as a murmur, it transforms into echo, songs, resonances that multiply like ripples in the water. Dissonances seek to transcend rather than to ascend. Sun-born life can be torn off by faceless beings because in its potential proliferation it becomes more vulnerable. Those who do show their face tirelessly protest, with their left fists raised, to reclaim those weaknesses. The moving bodies appear to tell a collective story. A history that repeats itself for the Mexican people. A history that is repeated in 3 of the 6 films collected here and that is repeated in the history of all Latin American peoples. We burn to sow and to build great cities. The film is a tribute to the choirs that are the witnesses and voices of an insistent memory. The film is the impression and expression of that memory.”