In this image, shot by James Rodriguez in Guatemala, two men in the center of the screen walk on a dirt road away from the viewer, holding a simple wood coffin between them on their shoulders. A stray dog stands in the path in front of them, and in the background two small buildings are dwarfed by looming dark mountains. The mood of the shot is one of grief and hopelessness, built by the compositional choices that Rodriguez makes. For instance, Rodriguez shoots the image so that the men’s faces are covered by the coffin, creating a sense that the death and pain in this village in Guatemala has caused huge amounts of grief and a loss of identity for the people living there. The people and buildings in the shot contrasted with the large and dark mountains in the back also adds a feeling of overwhelming loneliness.
From the website, we learn that this body is one of the over 250,000 victims from the Guatemalan civil war, which raged from 1960 to 1996. Many of these victims were taken from their homes and never found again, but are now slowly being able to be brought back to their families thanks to DNA analysis of their uncovered bodies. Looking at the shot one can tell that this is a rural Guatemalan village, most likely impoverished, and if anyone disappeared from here there families would have likely lost hope of ever finding them or their bodies again. The two men walking with the coffin is a grim image, but with the context of the local history, it actually represents a glimmer of hope for the healing of the community, as those who lost a family member or friend may be able to get some closure with a body.
