Watching people simply go about their business can somehow be one of the most fascinating things in the movies. The Berlin Award–winning Ixcanul (Volcano), Guatemala's entry for last year's Oscars, is an absorbing, unpretentious look at a culture not often shown, whether capturing how the characters can carry a forest's worth of firewood on their heads without missing a step, or witnessing them getting their pigs drunk on rum in hopes of speeding up the mating season. The first film made in the Kaqchikel Mayan language, writer-director Jayro Bustamante's feature debut is a film that's earthy and unsentimental and riveting throughout.

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