Mark Reviews Movies: SONG WITHOUT A NAME

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 6, 2020

There are no answers by the end of Song Without a Name, only definitive consequences. Things will never be the same for these characters, but just as it does after a woman's newborn baby is stolen right in front of her, life likely will go on within this new, painful normal.

After a prologue of archival photographs and newspaper headlines displayed on an old television, we're brought into the lives of Georgina (Pamela Mendoza) and Leo (Lucio Rojas), who are married and expecting their first child. It's 1988 in a small village of indigenous people in Peru, where Leo works unloading produce and Georgina sells potatoes on the street of a nearby town. They live in a small shack on a hillside along the ocean, and there are shots of them walking in silence along the hill, often silhouette from the rolling fog (in sparse black-and-white) and in silence, except for the roar of the wind and waters.

The film comes from co-writer/director Melina León, making her feature debut, and through such shots, she establishes an overwhelming sense of, not only isolation, but also loneliness. These characters may be together from the start or drawn together once the plot is set in motion, but once the story starts, we also realize how divided, not united, they are in their individual pain.

On the radio, Georgina hears about a free clinic for pregnant women and takes a bus ride there. When she goes into labor, she returns (It's painful, watching her suffer on the bus and climb a seemingly infinite row of stairs to the clinic). After giving birth, a nurse says the baby needs to be taken to a local hospital for a routine check-up. Georgina never sees her daughter again.

The narrative is then divided. Georgina tries and fails to find the people who stole her baby, and in the background, Leo loses his job and becomes involved in the political conflict. Meanwhile, a journalist named Pedro (Tommy Párraga) investigates the kidnapping scheme while struggling with his sexuality.

This may sound like a mystery, but León and co-writer Michael J. White are more invested in the devastation for these character and the impenetrable maze of complications of getting to the truth. In Song Without a Name, there is only two truths: These characters are alone in their suffering, and their suffering is what makes them alone.

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