Song Without a Name (Melina León, 2019): Peru/Spain/USA/Chile

Review by Manu Davila. View at AFI Fest 2019.

Canción Sin Nombre is such a powerful black and white film, it is like a filmmaking class, with a beautiful and authentic style. The story is based on real events in Peru during the dictatorship in 1988. Cinematography is special by Inti Briones (Too Late to Die Young), it is delicate, delightful and stick to the truth of the narrative and characters. Song Without a Name is Melina’s astonishing debut, and winner of 10 prestigious awards plus 11 nominations in important festivals such as Cannes. 

Melina’s debut is about the painful story of Georgina (Pamela Mendoza), whose newborn is kidnapped just after given birth by a fake clinic, which is responsible for child-trafficking. Demoralized after trying many times to get the police involved to take the case, Georgina got a young journalist to help her to investigate and find the truth about her baby. The film reminds me to ROMA (Alfonso Cuaron) due the use of black and white colors, to present historical events, to set time, as well as using news through radio or tv as narrator characters. It also reminds me to the Italian Neorealism, because of many characteristics from it, like shooting on outside locations, hand held camera movement, the use of long takes, non-professional actors, ordinary characters, and its themes are social contemporary issues, even though is about events in 1988. 

Leon and Briones make every frame fully complex, putting Georgina to corners, or taking extreme long shots of Georgina and her husband black silhouette. The cinematography is impressive, but at the same time intense, setting a heavy rhythm, submerging you into the story, but it kind of wears your energy. Song Without a Name is about the disenfranchisement of the indigenous community, humanitarian issues, and many more issues that nowadays we can relate to, such as trafficking of people, violence against women and terrorism.