‘Totem’
Manager: Lila Aviles
Artists: Naíma Sentiés, Montserrat Marañón, Marisol Gasé
Year: 2023
Premiere: 03/1/24
★★★
‘Totem’ story a mexican family It is told in just one and a half hours and takes place in a house, during the preparations for a surprise party and at the party. It’s a large house but it’s slowly getting smallerclaustrophobic.
A few voices and looks, a few bodies, many sick: A young man who can barely walk from bed to the bathroom, an old man who speaks using a laryngophone, a middle-aged woman who believes evil spirits inhabit the house, a woman who claims to heal the house by burping and throwing smoke from the shelves.
A world that is strange and at the same time everyday partially thought out, From the eyes of a seven year old girl, the daughter of the sick father and the grandfather speaking through his windpipe. His mother leaves him and thinks during the party. destruction in relationships, impatience, lack of mental health in some compared to the restraint of others. There are dark and tragic paintings hidden and snails slithering across the fabrics.
It could have been a straightforward melodrama about a dysfunctional family, but Lila Avilés films everything with surprising naturalness I’m looking for real moments between the cracks in the abyss towards which the characters are heading In one way or another.