The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lila Avilés’ Oscars entry is immersive and quietly beautiful
‘TÓTEM’
(In Spanish with English subtitles)
★★★ ½ (out of 4)
Rating: none (for mature audiences)
Running time: 95 minutes
How to watch: In theaters Friday
Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés’ slice-of-life second feature, “Tótem,” has an uncanny intimacy, immersing us in the lives of a family as they prepare for a birthday party for one of their members — a party that may well be his last.
Tonatiuh (Mateo García Elizondo) is a frail, sick young man who tries hard to rally for the occasion, particularly for the benefit of his 7-year-old daughter Sol (Naíma Sentíes), through whose eyes we see much of the film. Tonatiuh’s sisters squabble agreeably as they make party preparations, corral their various children and try hard to find the joy rather than the sadness in the day.
The party, when it finally arrives at the end of the film, feels like one of those magical evenings we’ve all experienced, seemingly lit by love.
Avilés is a gifted storyteller
who’s assembled a wonderfully natural cast, and you instantly feel part of this family, irritated at having to wait for the bathroom and worrying about how the medical bills will be paid.
We hear a cat’s purr, see a praying mantis seemingly waltzing with someone’s hand, watch as a spiritualist performs a ritual to banish bad spirits on the house (and then, on the way out, notes, “I sell
Tupperware, too”), listen to a father explaining to his child that he’s made her a painting because “sometimes there are things you really want to see but can’t. But they stay with you.”
“Tótem,” Mexico’s entry for best international feature film at this year’s Academy Awards, has won numerous honors on the international film festival circuit, and by its quietly beautiful final frame (as haunting a picture of loss as you’ll ever see) you’ll know why.
It’s difficult to make this sort of film, in which nothing of great dramatic import happens on screen, but Avilés has an ace up her sleeve: Sentíes, a first-time actor who carries the movie on her quietly expressive face. In one lovely moment, Sol watches her parents conversing (the two, for reasons not made clear, are no longer together) and you see the child imagining a different world, one in which everything worked out like in fairy tales.
And, at the end of the film, Sol pauses before lit candles to make a birthday wish; it’s a long, long pause in which she seems to become older and wiser and heartbreakingly resolute before our eyes — the absolute best sort of movie magic.