Media vita in morte sumus.
A kind of microcosm of the Mexican day of the dead, TOTEM is a slow burn flurry of a family celebration of a birthday that could turn quite quickly into a simultaneous death day.
In the midst of death, life continues, in writer-director Lila Avilés free wheeling view of an extended family determined to celebrate an anniversary that may be subsumed by another, more sombre, anniversary.
This juxtaposition of a commemoration of the day a man was born that may suddenly turn in to the day they mourn his death is distressingly stressing, and yet, as the film maker so deftly illustrates, life and death are one duality, just like wisdom and ignorance, inside and outside, day and night, sun and moon, light and darkness, yin and yang.
Another duality, that of heartbreak and inspiration, is brimming throughout this film, hope and despair simmering alongside each other on the hotplate of love.
TOTEM is set in a bustling Mexican household, where seven-year-old Sol is swept up in a whirlwind of preparations for the birthday party for her father, Tona, led by her mother, a flamboyant actress, and Tona’s sisters, a coven of aunts with formidable personalities.
Tona is largely bedridden, victim of a debilitating and terminal illness. As the day goes on, building to an event both anticipated and dreaded, Sol begins to understand the gravity of the celebration this year and watches as her family does the same.
The preparation of a party is always fraught. The party givers want the occasion to be perfect, faultless. The pressure on this particular party is of time and testimony. It may be the last cause for celebration in the family for some while. It could be the last experience for Tona.
And so for all the careful planning – the practical of the catering and the crazy spirit cleansing of the house by a charlatan witch – there is a touch of chaos as tensions and emotions ebb and flow.
TOTEM screens exclusively at Dendy Newtown.
