Jayro Bustamante’s creative choice to tell a very real, utterly horrifying story by infusing magic realism into it may seem odd at first. But Rita’s subject matter would’ve been too disturbing to translate on screen had it not been enveloped by that fairytale factor. Hell, it might even have proved way too much for the young girls who star in Bustamante’s film about a Guatemalan tragedy, especially considering that most of these girls were debuting with this film. Rita is a harrowing reminder of what happened to the children in Virgen de la Asuncion, a state-run safe house that was supposed to be a sanctuary for kids who had no one outside.
Spoiler Alert
What happens in the film?
Growing up in a household with a father who molested her and a mother who turned a blind eye didn’t leave much space for Rita to still believe in happy endings. But that didn’t mean that all fairytales lost meaning to Rita. Perceiving the terrible truths of her life as the trials of a fairytale perhaps helped her cope. She was only thirteen when she ran away from home with her little sister. Things would’ve turned out much better for Rita if she’d been allowed to stay with the kind woman who found her and gave her a job and a safe place to stay. But then Rita was brought to Hell. There’s no other way to describe the orphanage the state dumped her in. Everything that Rita experiences in this uninhabitable place takes a mystical form, because that’s the only way these kids can get through a day. The hazing Rita goes through leaves her bruised and bleeding. It was the work of the angels, the girls she’s sharing a dingy room with. Rita’s terrified of being perceived as a rebel. She puts up with the inedible food, the unpaid labor, and the abuse in the fear that things will get much worse if she revolts. But as she befriends Sulmy and Bebe, two of the angels working alongside Terca, seemingly the leader of the angels, Rita absorbs their rage against the institution’s abuse.
How did Rita end up in the orphanage?
Rita’s got devastating clarity about the true nature of the orphanage when she saw one of the girls get sexually assaulted by guards in the middle of the night. She also figured out who to trust when she saw the angels and the younger fairies taking care of the girl the day after. When she’s brought to the social service worker, someone Rita sees as the evil witch, she still has hope that maybe she’ll get to leave this place. She hopes that the social worker will sympathize with her pain when she tells her the truth. Rita’s been sexually abused by her father ever since she was seven. Though her mother was pained by it when she told her, she chose to keep her husband over protecting her kids. Rita endured that abuse. But when her father’s disgusting gaze fell on her baby sister, she had to take her and run. Celia saved her, or at least she tried to. But the government got in the mix when Rita ended up in the hospital after a botched abortion. The moment Rita feels that first spark of rage inside her is when the witch accuses her of having been jealous that her father touched her sister. That nauseating insinuation pushes Rita to do the brave thing for the first time. She spits on the witch and marks her first act of rebellion in this supremely abusive place. At this point, she knows that she can’t trust the people who run the place. But she realizes the full extent of just how predatory the orphanage is when they try to get suggestive poses out of her under the pretense that the pictures are for her case. She knows enough about the horrors of the world to realize how terribly the orphanage exploits the girls. The hazing was a helpful act on the angels’ part after all. They bruised Rita so she could avoid being trafficked for the time being.
Who are the stars?
The ghostly children in black veils first reveal themselves to Rita when she arrives at the orphanage. Ever since then, she’s seen them everywhere, appearing with whispers and vanishing into thin air. When one of the predatory guards, William, corners Rita in the bathroom, the ghostly kids crowd the place to save Rita. They’re the stars, the dead and dying kids who’ll guide the rebellion that’s brewing in the orphanage. The first girl who hanged herself with Christmas lights and became a star was Terca’s girlfriend. She didn’t want to abort the baby in her womb, but the orphanage wasn’t run by people who cared about these girls’ wishes. When she died wearing the twinkly lights around her neck, she created this limbo where all the kids who died at the hands of the management went. That limbo is where the stars stay, under the veil of gloom and death, sparkling with the same lights that marked the passing of the first one. To the kids, both dead and alive, hope is synonymous with the prophesied coming of a warrior angel. They believe that angel is Rita. And while it took her some time to adjust to the idea of fighting against the abusers, Rita acknowledged her role in opening up a door to freedom for all those who are tortured. The angels are planning an escape. But the stars’ plan is a lot more radical. When their purposes blend together into a singular urge for revenge and freedom, Rita rises up as the key to achieving their shared goal. They do plan to break free and run, but not before they get justice for all the pain. They don’t want this hellish place to stay up and running. And the only way to truly put an end to these monsters’ racket of abuse and exploitation is to unmask them in front of the world. Rita’s to lure William and get the catalog of all the girls they have sold into prostitution or are planning to, and when they get free, they’ll hand it to the media.
What happens to Rita and the angels?
In one of the early scenes in Rita, the titular character was too naive to understand the necessity of the sporadic protests Terca leads. She thought that their rebellious actions only caused them more pain. But since then, she’s come to know the true face of the place they’re in. They’re in a forgotten corner of society where the government has dumped them. There’s no one coming to save them. And since they’re being hurt anyway, it makes sense to risk being punished some more if the end goal is freedom. William’s easy to fool. But even though Rita fully intends to kill him with the dagger that the stars gave her, she doesn’t stand a chance against the big guy. Thankfully, the angels were there to take care of him with a brick. Rita plans to bust the orphanage’s entire operation with the incriminating evidence that’s on William’s phone. And once she gets out of here, she plans to hand that phone to the media and reunite with her little sister and Celia. Rita’s a lot more comfortable with her rage in the same ruckus that scared her the first time she saw it. The angels and the fairies have strength in their numbers and their desperation to get out of this hell. When they break free and run, there’s hope for them for a moment. But they couldn’t run far enough before the police caught them and dragged them back to the hellhole. Rita could’ve gotten free if she’d only thought of herself and didn’t stay back to help an injured Sulmy. Sulmy had to practically push her away to force her to save herself. A bus full of people wanted to protect Rita, but the cops found her and brought her back.
They knew that the punishment for pulling such a stunt would be graver than the pain that they’d gone through so far. But when the angels are brought back, they’re met with the kind of sadistic treatment that they couldn’t have imagined. The authorities cram them in a tiny room. They’re made to suffer from hunger and dehydration for almost two days. Help doesn’t come, but that doesn’t kill the angels’ fury. To get them to open the door, they light a mattress on fire. The girls underestimated the kind of insane savagery the authorities were capable of. The higher ups gave strict orders to the management against opening the door. They watched as the room filled up with smoke and didn’t lift a finger to help the children. Even as the smell of burning flesh filled up the place, the monsters outside the door turned a deaf ear to the shrieks. The kids were given excruciating deaths for the courage to protest against the brutality of the management and inhumane living conditions.
In Rita’s ending, as their enraged souls walk out of the room, they’re made eternal with their never ending ache for justice. They were hurt by the world, hurt by the people who were meant to protect them, and abandoned in a place where they were held prisoner. The prison claimed their life and any hope they had of a better future. The state has turned a blind eye, as if they were never there. They’re forsaken as if they were never people deserving of the bare minimum kindness.
What’s the true story behind the film?
In Rita, the titular character told you at the very start that things you were about to watch might not have happened the way she would tell you, but they very much did happen. Bustamante handpicked the actors who’d represent their Guatemalan sisters who fell victim to the government’s systematic negligence when it comes to girls, especially those who come from a poor background. Virgen de la Asuncion, the Guatemalan safe house for children, was created with the supposed intention of saving and protecting the children who were failed by their parents and the world. But what it really proved to be was a prison of sorts. The place which was supposed to house about 500 kids stuffed close to 800 in that dingy, dark, disgusting place. The food would make them sick, there were hardly any medical help available at the premises, and the people who ran the place were extremely violent and exploitative towards the kids they’d detained. No one cared to look into what went down at that hellish place. Even though there were countless reports of sexual abuse and human trafficking made against the orphanage, the human rights commission shoved it all under the rug and forgot about it. A rebellion brewed within, much like we saw in Rita. There were no angels and fairies, but the tormented kids decided to protest against the insurmountable amount of abuse they were subjected to on a daily basis. When they ran, looking for a better life out there because anything would’ve been better than living in a hole where they were sexually abused, sold off, and tortured, the police captured them and brought them back. They were severely beaten for daring to act against the institution and locked inside a tiny, suffocating room. The kids were held there without food and medical assistance for days before they had no other option but to revolt again.
Like we saw in Rita, the 56 detained children lit a mattress on fire, hoping that the people outside the door would do something about it. But they silently watched them suffocate and burn. Even when the firefighters arrived and insisted that they be allowed to do their job, the management held them back. No one did anything to protect the kids, 41 of whom died in that horrifying tragedy. The Guatemalan government was silent and unapologetic in the aftermath of such a terrible crime committed against children who had no one to turn to. The tragedy happened in 2017, and even now, the fallen haven’t received justice. The handful of kids who survived the fire are still silenced with threats. The people who call the shots don’t want the truth about their incompetence to come out. The families of the dead have been threatened, harassed, and even murdered. It’s this disturbing failure of the government and the justice system that Rita protests against. The dead, their kin, and the survivors still await what the state owes them. But the state’s busy quieting the voice of protest, falsifying reports, and neglecting the thorough investigation that needs to be done, clearly to protect the big-league names that’d come up if an investigation is ever actually conducted.
