Hey, patriarchy, ‘Is That You?’
In the quietly creepy Cuban horror film “Is That You?,” Gabriela Ramos plays Lili, a teenager living in the country with her tyrannical father, Eduardo (Osvaldo Doimeadiós), and her mother, Alina (Lynn Cruz) — whom Eduardo keeps bound with ropes. The dad is more affectionate toward his daughter, though, which may explain why Lili takes his side when Alina considers fleeing with the family’s employee Carlos (Jorge Enrique Caballero).
Writer-director Rudy Riverón Sánchez waits a good long while before he brings in his movie’s supernatural elements. When Eduardo is abruptly killed, Lili calls on some ancient Caribbean hoodoo to bring him back. And as is usually the case with resurrection stories, what returns from the beyond … well, it ain’t quite right.
Sánchez doesn’t waste any time, however, before he plunges viewers into a nightmare. In the opening sequence, Eduardo is forcing himself on a clearly unwilling Alina; and in the scenes that follow, “Is That You?” establishes the family’s perverse dynamic, made all the more upsetting by their relative isolation, emphasized by the incessant chirping of insects on the soundtrack.
Make no mistake: “Is That You?” is a grim, grim movie that keeps the conventional horror beats to a minimum, replacing them with disturbing domestic drama that many will find hard — or even impossible — to sit through.
But Sánchez really has something difficult but necessary to say here, about how sometimes an oppressive patriarchy endures because the people who benefit from it — even if just marginally — won’t let it stay dead.
“Is That You?” In Spanish with English subtitles. Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills; available Aug. 13 on VOD