THE CRY...La Llorona

La Llorona & Mothers who Murder

When I was doing my research on La Llorona for The Cry, one of the things I looked into was the whole phenomenon of mothers who murder their children..."infanticide."  I dug up cases across the US starting in the mid-1800s until today, and was totally blown away by the number of women who murder their children, usually by drowning or suffication. 

To me, it seems like La Llorona is trying to teach us something here, basically that this is a horrific act, but society isn't doing much to stop this from happening. 

Here is another case of a mother, Susan Smith, who drowned her kids that I include in The Cry.  Do you remember this case?

Andrea Yates: Insanity or La Llorona?

Today, Andrea Yates' 2002 guilty verdict and life sentence in prison for drowning her 5 children in Texas was overturned, and she was found not guilty for reasons of insanity.

The deep message behind La Llorona is that there is nothing more horrifying than the act of a mother killing her child.

In many places, when a mother drowns her child, people believe that she must have been possed by La Llorona.  This is something that I include in my film, The Cry.

What do you think?  Was Andrea Yates insane, or did La Llorona make her do it?

La Llorona in the Flesh

I also remember there was this woman in another nearby town.  Somehow her kids had drowned.  From that time on everyone called her La Llorona and all the kids were afraid to pass by her house. 

Later, when I did my research on La Llorona, I found out that there were many places that had Llorona's in the flesh...all of them women whose children had died under strange circumstances. 

Have you ever heard of a real life Llorona?

Digging La Llorona from Her Grave

It wasn't until after I moved back to New Mexico from Mexico that I got the bug to do something in the film area, even though I was studying engineering.  But it took me a lot more time before I actually started working on this dream. 

Meanwhile, I dug around a bit about La Llorona in New Mexico, and realized that after so many years of believing she was from my home town up north, actually, she had hit pretty much all of New Mexico.  (I didn't learn about her background in Mexico until much later.) 

What place did you grow up believing she was from?

La Llorona Has Cried for 500 Years

After Malinche's death, the legend of La Llorona spread by word of mouth throughout Mexico, and then throughout most of Central and Sounth America.  Now, in the U.S, there are more than 28 million persons who have grown up hearing stories of her. 

The legend seemed to have spread only minimally to the islands (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic), it seems because of a combination of the separation by water and because the islands were less influence by the indigenous culture of the continent. 

For 500 years, La Llorona has cried.  Will the crying ever stop?

La Malinche/La Llorona vrs the Virgen de Guadalupe

A couple of interesting items I learned when living in Mexico. 

First, La Malinche (whose name now has the meaning of "traitor" in Mexico) died approx. one year before the first appearances of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Second, when I was living in Mexico I got the impression that many men had a black and white attitude about women:  Either they were considered a) Virgin-like  (mothers, sisters, etc.) ; or b) horror or traitor/Malinche-like (other women) . 

So in Mexico, there seems to be both a historical and a modern day connection between La Malinche/La Llorona and La Virgen.

What are your thoughts on this?

Malinche, The Original Llorona

In 1505, the Aztec Princess, La Malinche, was born.  Around the age of 14 she was given to Hernan Cortes as his slave/translater, and became his lover.  This is the woman who later gave birth to Cortes' child, then according to legend, was betrayed by Cortes, leading her to drown her infant son.  This is where the curse of La Llorona is believed to have started, with La Malinche--now called La Llorona (the weeping woman)--condemned to roam the earth forever, crying for her child.  You hear La Llorona's cries several times in my film, The Cry.

The Curse Started in Mexico

I went for a year of college to study engineering in a city of pop. 80,000.   It was a total culture shock moving to such a big place.  My second year there, I was asked if I wanted to go study in Mexico on a special foreign study program.  I said, "yeah...what the heck," and found myself in Monterrey for one year.  (Culture shock #1 was nothing compared to culture shock #2 in Mexico.)

In any case, turns out that it seems the original curse of La Llorona started in Mexico back in the 1500's, with a woman called La Malinche.  She was the translator of the Conquistador Hernan Cortes, as well as his lover.  I mention La Malinche in a couple of places in The Cry.

Had you heard anything about this?

La Llorona is ours!

I grew up with a lot of racism.  It can do funny things to a kid, besides making you mad as hell from time to time.  One of the things it did to me--without me realizing it at the time--was it made me lose my pride in my culture. 

But after high school I had the chance to live in several countries around the world.  And one of the biggest things that I learned through this was how awesome our (Latino) culture is. 

That's why I decided to make my movie, The Cry about La Llorona.  La Llorona is one of our biggest treasures.  And La Llorona is ours. 

La Llorona Terrifies

Growing up with loads of superstition, most all that I remember as a kid was feeling afraid.  La Llorona was a big part of this fear.

After I left my town, and had the chance to learn a lot more about myself and the world, almost all the fear disappeared.  But La Llorona didn't. 

I've asked myself hundreds of times why she terrifies so many people from all over, and the best answer I can come up with is this:  Imagine being a kid again and seeing the person who you trust most in the world, the person who is supposed to be here to take care of you and love you, the person who gave you life--your own mother--turning against you and drowning you.  There can't be many things more terrifying than this.

So, you can bet The Cry is a scary movie.  Why does La Llorona scare you?