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The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo review
Diego Céspedes’s striking debut mixes magic realism and melodrama in a tender tale of an LGBTQ+ community facing fear and superstition in 1980s Chile
TL;DR
- The film is a debut by young Chilean director Diego Céspedes.
- It is set in the early 1980s in a mining town on the edge of nowhere.
- A small LGBTQ+ community runs a establishment that serves food to miners and performs drag cabaret at night.
- The community is raising an 11-year-old child named Lidia.
- The story includes themes of bullying, transphobia, and a mysterious "plague" which is an allegory for the AIDS crisis.
- The film blends elements of queer western, fable, Latin soap opera, magic realism, and tender emotion.
- The cinematography by Angello Faccini is described as desolate beauty.
- The film has a slightly feverish tone and dream-like logic.