If in her debut feature, La camarista, Lila Avilés surprised with the intimate portrait of the daily loneliness of an overly self-demanding chambermaid, her second feature film, Tótem, strengthens the great talent of this Mexican filmmaker and screenwriter with an easy smile. and contagious to deepen the connection between human relationships and interior spaces, managing to move the viewer with stories that are as simple as they are universal.
His new work, premiering this Friday in theaters, shows the chaos that breaks out during the preparations for a surprise party for the father of Sol, a curious seven-year-old girl who is very mature for her age, who must face death. imminent death of his beloved young father, suffering from an illness that is consuming him. A story filmed in each room of a house "with heart and soul" and a great female presence as a setting that won the Grand Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlinale last year and was selected in the Oscar shortlist for best international film, in representation of Mexico.
"I was a very young mother and my daughter has been everything. I was very interested in returning to that age of seven in which personality is forged, in which one is very open and observant and at the same time very fragile. And to return to the house, to the idea of how we inhabit space, we interrelate and how we communicate. There is verbal communication and then sensory communication, which connects us with our animal part and is something that we forget," says the director in conversation with The vanguard.
And we see that intimate family portrait through Sol's eyes. "Although the film is choral and there are many characters, including family and friends, the root is this very mature girl. I think that sometimes we overvalue childhood, we think that children don't know anything and it's quite the opposite. In the organization of the party, joy and pain fly over. Sol's mother drops her off at her grandfather's house after buying her some balloons, a clown nose, and a fun wig. Anarchy reigns in the home. The grandfather treats a patient who starts crying in the middle of the consultation. One of the aunts tries to make her birthday cake with the help of her little daughter, who won't leave her alone, and the other aunt invites a healer to eliminate bad energies from the home.
All while Sol, that child with the bright name, waits for her turn to see her father, and asks questions about her grandmother's death and the end of the world. "We have all lived a day that marks you and forges you. There are biological deaths and those of change. They are totemic days, of ritual, that make you be totally present and time changes. I was interested in the perception of how we live life And holy daily life," argues Avilés, who was deeply affected by the 2017 earthquake in Mexico. "I had a terrible time. We had to move house, but even in those moments of disaster you end up laughing because we are human and sensitive and we wander around many places," he remembers. That's why humor is also very present in the film. "Life is like that. Laugh and cry. Light and darkness. Yin and Yang... and diversity has no label."
The great success of this moving story lies in a wonderful casting, from the debutante Naíma Senties in the role of Sol, to Teresa Sánchez, who acts as the loving caretaker of the sick father, to the protagonist's aunts, played by Marisol Gasé and Montserrat. Cashew. "I knew that if we found the casting, we would find the film. Sometimes cinema takes you down very mysterious paths. The casting was very tiring. I did it with Gabriela Cartol, the protagonist of La camarista. Luckily, we found Naíma, who She came from a very fragile moment due to Covid. It has been a wonderful process. In the end she even made a diary of the filming and established a great friendship with the girl who plays her little cousin. The truth is that there has been a lot of complicity between everyone those of us who have worked on the film. A family was created and I am tremendously grateful," she says with a broad smile.
Tótem is also a reflection of the beauty of families in Latin America, "which are numerous," and "of friendships, which are the family that one chooses." And above all it is a magnificent gift for Avilés' daughter. "If one dies, you already say: 'there's a movie left!'" concludes the director exultantly, whose dream is "to be able to film in many countries." For now, she hopes it won't take long to lift her third pitch again in Mexico.
