Sol (a magical Naima Sentiés) is a seven- year old child. She struggles to come to terms with her father’s illness, as she spends an eventful day with all her family at her grandfather’s home, where they are hosting a large surprise birthday party for her stricken artist father, Tona (Mateo García Elizondo) who is dying.
Mateo García Elizondo as Tona, the father of Sol
Everyone faces the pain of staring mortality in the face in their own way. Tona’s sister Nuria (Montserrat Marañon) loses herself in a bottle as her tiny daughter Esther (the delightful Saori Gurza) tries to persuade her mother not to drink any more.
Monserrat Marañon as Nuria
The other sister Alejandra (Marisol Gasé) frets, becoming a control freak, while Sol wanders about, trying in vain to persuade everyone to let her in to see her dad, who is undergoing treatment from his nurse Cruz (Teresita Sánchez), as he tries to summon the strength to be able to face the guests. She turns to ‘Alexa’ to ask when the world will end. She is not happy with the astronomical reply and turns to studying the snails and insects that inhabit the garden and house. The guests toast Tona to try to cheer him up: “There is a sun from the underworld… at this moment the jaguar walks under the nocturnal sun”.
The family are desperate as the money has run out for any further treatments. They’re obliged to sell all Tona’s paintings on the quiet. Yet, despite this and having failed to even pay the nurse for the last two weeks, Alejandra insists on hiring a white witch to cleanse the house of evil spirits in a last-ditch attempt to heal her brother.
This is an intensely moving film that touches on love, mortality, comradery and the inevitable tensions that arise in a large family facing a crisis. The two youngest children Sol and her cousin Esther steal the show, and the magic of their presence on screen is reminiscent of the equally charming Summer 1993 (2017) by Carla Simon Pipó.
Montserrat Marañon as Nuria with Saori Gurza as Esther
Mexican Lila Alvés has proved in Tótem to have a real talent directing children and Diego Tenorio’s camerawork is superb and the film has been amply rewarded with many awards and nominations. As one reviewer (Stephen A. Russell) commented: “… it throbs with humanity and will leave you desperate to fall into the arms of your own when the credits roll.” She founded the Limerencia Production Company in 2018
Alvés first feature The Chambermaid (2018), was selected to represent Mexico at the Academy Awards. It also won awards at numerous festivals, largely for being able to delve into the inner life of a person in a gentle and sensitive manner. (See https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/chambermaid-dir-lila-aviles ).
Equally, here, there is a profoundly empathetic insight into the dynamics of a family. Another reviewer referred to an “imperfect family”, but I disagree. This is a family united in love and challenged by unbelievable stress. At times, it feels so intimate as to feel like a documentary: Should we really be watching this scene? Despite the film, apparently, being semi-autobiographical, Avilés has no time for sentimentality, she faces the situations with a raw eye, without elaborate twists or turns and Tenorio’s camerawork captures the magic that ensues.
Naima Sentiés as Sol
There is the complexity of emotions in a take, as Tona watches his wife and daughter perform a show for his birthday, acutely aware he will not see his next. Or even in the pain of growing up, as Sol watching the candles on her father’s birthday cake, lives a lifetime of experiences, all her seven years echo in her eyes as, once again, she makes an impossible wish, hoping it can come true this time, with a determination only innocence can express.
The simplicity of the manner in which this family is filmed rings authentic and true, and it is almost impossible to believe it does not really exist out there, for real… maybe it does.
Tótem will be in cinemas from December 1st 2023. Check here for your local screening
Writer/Director: Lila Alvés/Production: Lila Avilés/ Tatiana Graullera and Louise Riousse/ Music: Thomas Becka/ Cinematography: Diego Tenorio/ Editor: Oma Guzmán/
Cast: Naimea Sentiés, Iazua Lario (mother) Mateo García Elizondo (Father) Montserrat Marañon, Marisol Gasé, Alberto Amador (grandfather), Saori Gurza.
