Huesera: Valeria and the Dissonance of Motherhood
It’s been awhile since I sat down and watched a movie that really resonated with the motions of life that I am experiencing as a 33-year-old. Recently I have felt like I am moving into a life where I am content with the fact that I will most likely not birth any children. This is a feeling that I have held for quite some time. My body would not be able to spend 9 months of my life growing, changing, shifting, and then healing. It’s not that I don’t believe motherhood is something special and a transcendent experience: I just don’t feel like I have it in me to go through the trauma and the self-doubt that such an experience can inflict on the body and psyche.
Valeria longs for the life that she left behind, the restraints of domesticated life holding her tightly as she spirals further into stereotyped roles and lifestyles. After receiving a positive pregnancy test, Valeria begins to feel the Bone Woman creeping in, a presence that divides Vale’s reality and perception of pregnancy. Scenes of the Bone Woman and Vale’s previously lived experiences intertwine to pose the question: Is Valeria ready to let go of her life and give into motherhood completely? This is a question that I have posed to myself many times. I don’t ever disregard motherhood and birth. Motherhood is an unpredictable role that people take on and dedicate time and their lives to, and it’s a role that I don’t think I can step into at this point in my life. It appears that Valeria feels the same way, the Bone Woman etching doubt and planting seeds of nostalgia that change Valeria’s trajectory into motherhood.
As a pregnancy fear driven movie, Huesera presents us with a twisted story of Valeria and the changes she experiences as a pregnant woman: sleep deprivation, sexual desires, bone crunching transformations, and shadows of doubt creeping in the corners of her world. It does not scale back on the raw reality of pregnancy for Valeria as she is forced to face the curse that has been declared upon her. We are also witness to Valeria going back to remnants of her old life; a punk rock party with ex-partner Octavia; a life that seems to be simple—sex, alcohol, lovers, and the complexities of interactions of lost love.
La Huesera in Mexican folklore is the Bone Collector, a mythical wild woman who roams the wilderness collecting bones, specifically wolf bones—the bone element of the folklore represents the ‘indestructible life-force’ of women. The symbolism and imagery of the wolf is meant to be representative of preparing for child rearing; they are symbolic of intuition and ferocious in protecting their young. Claudia Ruiz Gustafson states that the bone woman is the one that knows all; therefore, it knows the deep down desires of those that she haunts, revealing to them their innermost desires. Valeria is experiencing a metamorphosis that will change her life forever, and she has a choice to make: enter into motherhood with the ferocity of the wolf, or experience the freedom she has always yearned for. Late at night, Valeria sits in her bathtub, huddled in a tight ball as her back morphs, the bones crunching one by one. The pregnancy she carries takes her bones one by one, distorting her flesh, letting her know that deep inside her physique is altering piece by piece. As a person who has made the decision not to bear children (and a disabled body unable to handle the process), I could imagine being pregnant could potentially feel like an occult possession taking over your body. It may be skeptical of me, as I know plenty of people who have had positive experiences; however, the dissonance that Valeria is experiencing with her pregnancy resonates with me.
Pregnancy is a wonderful and life altering experience that I hold as one of the most incredible things a child birthing body can do. Like Valeria, my sister made incredible sacrifices to her life and her body: she carried and birthed two children while disabled, and it has impacted the way that I see pregnancy and birth altogether. It changes the mind, spirit and physical form in ways that I can only imagine, and I praise those who are able to reconcile the changes and create a new life for the new human and ultimately for themselves. Valeria is incredibly relatable, I am able to see so much hesitation and doubt that haunts people who are pregnant or have thought about it. Valeria represents the duality inside all birthing people--how far are we willing to go to give our bodies away to the unknown.
