by Jo Stubbings
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Tamara Cortés, Pedro Muñoz, Matias Catalán, Paula Dinamarca, Vicente Caballero
Intro:
… the kind of film that’s difficult to shake.
When a film defies categorising, it often means one of two things – a bold original or a bit of a schemozzle. The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, the debut feature from Chilean director, Diego Céspedes, initially feels like the latter. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age film (just), but it’s also a modern-day parable, and a folkloric tale with elements of magic realism, the absurd and the grotesque. One could argue that it’s so many things, it risks being nothing at all. Yet in the hands of this young director, you get the impression that labels matter squat and he’ll forge his own brand, thank you very much.
Eleven-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés) has been raised by a family of loving drag queens in a desert tavern – the only source of entertainment in a bleak mining town. When people start dying from a mystery disease, the miners are convinced that the ‘girls’, as they call themselves, are to blame. As the title suggests, one look from these exotics is all it takes to infect victims with a feverish, ultimately fatal, longing – apparently.
When miner Yovani (Pedro Muñoz) becomes obsessed with Lidia’s ‘mother’ Flamingo (Matias Catalán) – he begs her to flush the plague from his body. Their love-play has a dangerous edge, however, culminating in a shocking act of violence. Though Yovani flees, this is a town where knowing others’ business is vital. When Lidia discovers that he’s closer than she thinks, she plots her revenge.
Set in the 1980s, the film invites parallels with the early years of the AIDS epidemic. Themes of love, death, fear, prejudice and homophobia surface repeatedly, framed through an ‘us versus them’ mentality, the miners versus the mariposas (slang for gays). Amusingly, when scuffles break out, it’s the ‘girls’ who land the hardest blows.
The drag queen community is the film’s strength and weakness. Mama Boa (Paula Dinamarca) – the tavern’s madam – is a symbol of authenticity in a world of lurid cabaret costumes, false eyelashes and broken dreams. Her battle-hardened charges, Eagle, Lioness, Piranha, and Flamingo, are treated with a tenderness that’s alien to the aggressive desert society. (Note the contrast between the miners’ single cabins and the communal warmth of the tavern.)
Yet the theatricality that enlivens the film can be excessive. This is especially so in the cabaret scenes that feel corny rather than comic or entertaining. These and episodes of exaggerated rage feel better suited to a high school melodrama than the 2025 winner of the Cannes Un Certain Regard award.
The voice of reason is Lidia, plainly named in contrast to her ‘animal’ family. Like Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous, Lidia is the stable force through whom we observe the world of unhinged adults. Tamara Cortés gives the role dignity, saying little but expressing all through her beautiful Chilean eyes. Lidia’s growing love for the even-tempered Julio (Vicente Caballero) is treated, surprisingly, as something pure and sacred, the couple representing a kind of Adam and Eve, before the bite.
The cinematography, by Angello Faccini, is striking. Long shots of the Atacama Desert, its blocks of blue sky, and unforgiving expanses, underscore the sense of human isolation and vulnerability felt by the characters. They also offer a reprieve when the action gets hectic.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is uneven and repetitive in parts but the kind of film that’s difficult to shake.
