Tōtem
Summary
With the opening move picture ofTótem , Mexico ’s excerpt for the96th Academy Awards , writer - music director Lila Avilés subtly teaches us how to watch her film . Seven - class - old Sol ( Naíma Sentíes ) and her mother Lucía ( Iazua Larios ) are in a public toilet facility , practice a song they ’ll execute at a political party that evening . Sol takes so long on the toilet that Lucía recourse to peeing in the sump , sending her daughter into a scene of giggles . It ’s a loving , private moment , and the camera is knowledgeable with them , interested chiefly in their faces .
In the car afterward , Sol insists they hold their breath and make a wish as they pass beneath a bridge . Lucía playfully mollycoddle her , even saying , once they ’ve give forth , that her dream will for certain fall dependable . But when Sol says she wishes her begetter wo n’t die , her mother ’s typeface fall . The stakes are clear now ; despite Sol ’s coloured clown wig and the balloon behind them , this occasion is not strictly joyous . The young girl ’s notion in things like want may not subsist the dark .
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Cast
Totem is a supernatural horror film released in 2017 . It follows a teenager who take drastic action to shield her kin from a menacing supernatural force-out . As tensity escalates , inherited dynamics become strained in the nerve of an ever - loom threat that tests their resilience and unity .
Tótem ’s photographic camera is always studying the actors , explorative and intrusive in the manner of a child ’s perceptive gaze .
To Get The Most Out Of Tótem, Pay Close Attention
From there , we know how good to pay aid . Avilés hide a touch of premonition in their dialogue , unveil that their vocal , which a charwoman frantically in sexual love sings to the firmament , is part of a narration that sees her wooer come to harm . That reference work to caption and Sol ’s conjuration of superstition vortex together with the otherwise terrene , familial shot , and when the tone all of a sudden turns dour , that feel lodges in your stomach . New elements will be added to that miscellanea , even in lines that seem tossed off , and the more close we hear , the better we understand .
Sol and Lucía ’s former emphasis on functioning is also informative . Tótem ’s television camera is always take the thespian , explorative and intrusive in the mode of a child ’s perceptive regard , but the prologue ’s worked up shift lets us have it off the characters are acting , too , peculiarly around Sol . kinsperson and friend are gathering for her father Tona ’s ( Mateo García Elizondo ) birthday , but he is very sick with Crab . There ’s a prevailing sense this trip around the sun may have been his last . How and when his have sex ones show their feel is one of the movie ’s elemental interest , and thanks to some savvy filmmaking , one of ours as well .
While it ’s on , the film feels so grounded in this instant with these people , but its scope pay off more and more straggly as it pour .
Once Sol arrives at the family home , more nuanced dynamics occur into play , and Avilés is always give us new pieces of the puzzle . Not everyone is behind this political party : Aunt Alejandra ( Marisol Gasé ) is the driving force out , and some even believe it comes at Tona ’s expense . Aunt Nuri ( Montserrat Marañón ) , whose attention is always partially on her youthful girl Esther ( Saori Gurza ) , is overwhelmed by it all . Sol ’s grandfather ( Alberto Amador ) strongly object , while Uncle Napo ( Juan Francisco Maldonado ) seems to just go with the menses .
Each is processing Tona ’s illness in their own way . Alejandra leans spiritual , bringing someone in to cleanse the mansion of malevolent presences , but she is also the most focused on the impossible expense of Tona ’s aid . Nuri pushes for more scientific intervention , and seems the least accepting of his approaching death . Napo takes a New Age view , entering the flick halfway through because he was dress on sustain constitutive foods and having everyone collectively contemplate on his brother ’s healing . These all demarcation with vista of Tona with Cruz ( Teresita Sánchez ) , his carer andTótem ’s most empathetic mien , that ground his wellness in aesculapian reality .
In Tótem, Time Secretly Shapes Everything
Add to these the overwhelming presence of animal life , artwork ( Tona is a talented cougar ) , and the introduction by party guests ofIndigenous tradition ’s non - one-dimensional understanding of space - time , and this crime syndicate family seems to contain the entire world . While it ’s on , the cinema feels so grounded in this moment with these citizenry , but its scope gets more and more rambling as it decants . To answer for for everything that registers as meaningful or is deserving of vital notice would require more place than I have here .
But sentence is worth dwelling on . For Mesoamerican civilisation , we are told , it can be think of as a spiral — everynewpoint on the timeline seems like a cyclicalreturn , and frailty versa . A natal day , say , is the same every year , and yet no two are exactly alike . This idea is primal toTótem . Sol ’s grandmother give-up the ghost of Crab years ago , in the very same room Tona currently occupies . It ’s possible to register his and his siblings ' pick as drive by their desire to make something about it , whatever has stuck with them , different this prison term .
And not only different for themselves . This may be Sol ’s first time grappling with a parent ’s potential death , but from her family ’s perspective , the same injury is re-emerge in a new generation . As we see how their cicatrice shaped their behaviour , we are result to wonder how she will come forth from this changed . I ’d indicate the movie ’s finish offers us an response , but if not that , then certainly a desire to see in that way . That feeling has motivated me to keep poring overTótem , and anyone who see to it it would do well not to let it go too promptly .
Naíma Sentíes and Mateo García Elizondo in Tótem
Tótemopens begins a modified theatrical departure in New York on January 26 and in Los Angeles on February 2 . The film is 95 minutes longsighted and is presently unrated .
Naíma Sentíes and Iazua Larios in Tótem
