Gustavo Bockos | Takanakuy / 2023

order is preserved

by Douglas Messerli

 

Gustavo Bockos and Fabricio Ide (screenplay), Gustavo Bockos (director) Takanakuy / 2023 [18 minutes]

 

This 2023 short film by Gustavo Bockos, set high in the Peruvian Andes where the major activity is sheep herding, is as stunningly beautiful in its landscape as it is brutal in its patriarchal notions of male behavior. This movie also celebrates the Peruvian tribal festival in which various male grudges are settled with brutal physical fights; in Quechua, the local language, Takanakuy literally means “to hit each other.”

     The film begins with the two close friends, the older Chaska (Junior Bejar) and the young Fausto (Joe Quispe) watching in pain as slightly older boys suddenly pick one a lamb from the herd and for reason, grab it and tie it up and beat it to death with clubs. It is almost a ritualistic act of unreasonable violence and vengeance. When Chaska and Fausto stand back from the others, aghast at the boy’s behavior, they force Fausto to take up a club and join in their activities and in stands in tears not daring to use the club until they so demean him that, now fully crying, he is also forced to bring down the stick on the innocent lamb they have chosen.

     Fausto, not having fully recovered from the pointless killing of the lamb, walks home still in tears with Chaska following close behind him. When Fausto reaches the house he attempts to skirt his father’s (Amiel Cayo) gaze, but rushing in the stone construction, but is stopped and found himself to have marks on his face where evidently the other boys slapped and challenged him for being a sissy. When his father asks, he admits that he has been fighting, it’s clear that his father approves. In this cruel world, male battles are to be expected.

     Even the next day, Fausto remains depressed about the incident. Chaska wonders whether or not his father has hit him. But, in any event, he attempts to cheer him up. They race to a point in the distance, Chaska letting the younger boy win, all in the hopes of altering his state of mind.  

     Fausto now queries him about his name, usually used for girls. But he quickly explains, as he stands pissing into space, that if he were a girl he’s have to sit down. In Quechua, Chaska means “star” as we see Fausto playing with twigs that he puts into the shape as a star. It’s clear that for Fausto, Chaska is his guide and star, the slightly older mentor with whom children often fall in love.

    They come nearer to his home where, Chaska, in play, squirts him with goat milk, his father overhearing their playful rapport nearby, and clearly looking troubled.

     Back in the open fields, Chaska queries the boy about his mother, but Fausto has no idea where she is, simply that he lives with his father.

     The camera flashes back to the father and a friend digging up earth with primitive tools. But even here, not at all near the boys, he seems to hear voices and looks now violently disturbed. He walks away from his labor, apparently in search of his son and Chaska, who are now playing out a strange ritual in which Chaska quotes passages that seem almost religious based, asking the earth to help them find a full life on earth. A prayer of sorts to the “motherland,” it is a plea basically for the earth to forgive them for their innocent acts as well as their families. He prays for a life of love and knowledge, awards his younger friend who has repeated his lines one by one as he prays, with a flower behind his ear. This is a prayer, but it is also strangely somewhat like a marriage vow, a prayer of their own happiness together, a beautiful moment of fellowship in the mountains with the land itself as well as blessing their own truly innocent friendship.

   Suddenly we now witness the father dragging his son home in fury, demanding to know what he has been up to all these days.

      He also goes to attack Chaska, demanding to know what he has done to his son, as Chaska locks himself into his own house. The father insists that he is too old for Fausto but old enough to fight him at Takanakuy. In short he is falsely accusing him of some imaginary sexual relationship with Fausto, and is now out for revenge, locking away his totally confused son in the house for several days, promising him that someday he will thank him.

      When the festival day arrives, many of the men show up with elaborate headdresses of various birds. The father challenges Chaska to a fight and easily knocks him down several times. Days later, we see Fausto slowly approaching and watching his former friend, but he doesn’t dare actually come closer, while Chaska looks up to see Fausto, putting his head down as he returns to work. The patriarchal system has won again denying any possible friendship or love between the boys. Fausto has been tossed into the world of violence which represents his society.

 

Los Angeles, August 23, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).