The Milk of Sorrow (2009) and the Power of the Garden, Part I

The Milk of Sorrow and the Power of the Garden, Part 1

Directed by Claudia Llosa, the Peruvian drama The Milk of Sorrow (2009) illustrates at least three versions of the 

garden growing out of classism, racism, and a bloody civil war. Centered on young daughter Fausta’s (Magaly Solier) 

struggle to cope with her mother’s death and the memories of war she leaves behind, The Milk of Sorrow draws on 

musical and visual poetry of gardens to reveal conflicts between Fausta’s impoverished indigenous Lima, Peru 

community and the white upper-class inner-city fortress where she works as a servant. 

Ultimately, Fausta reconciles these conflicting views, negotiating a solution that promotes a middle ground like that 

Adamson proposes. The brightly colored artificial garden Fausta’s family creates may contrast greatly with the walled 

paradise inside Fausta’s employer Aida’s (Susi Sánchez) gates, but the garden growing inside Fausta (both literally 

and figuratively) serves as a bridge between their conflicting ideologies.

The first “garden” introduced in the film breaks the mournful singing and tragic death that open the film. Fausta’s 

mother shares her terrifying story on her deathbed, singing of the rapes she endured during Peru’s dirty war between 

Maoist guerrillas and government security forces in the 1980s and the cursed outcome for Fausta. Fausta has fed on 

her mother’s “milk of sorrow” and must feel her trauma even after her mother’s death. As critic Rick Vecchio explains, 

“tens of thousands of Andean Indians did flee to Lima in the 1980s and 1990s to escape political violence… [and] 

helped to shape the rich tapestry of Peru’s culture and form the character of its society.” 

When Fausta’s mother passes “like a dead bird,” however, the film reveals the colorful constructed garden outside 

Fausta’s uncle’s house. Although surrounded by barren mountains, Fausta’s cousin is trying on a wedding dress in 

their dusty yard, and the brightly dressed family sits around an outdoor table looking like flowers bursting out of the 

desert hills of their blue painted barrio. When Fausta appears, her nose begins to bleed, and a close-up of the blood 

seems to bud like a rose.This first garden provides color that combats the colorless traumas of war and gender and 

racial oppression.