“The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo” feels as familiar as it is strange. It's about the formation of new families beyond blood relationships, about transphobia and homophobia and about bigotry – topics that are common in queer cinema. But director Diego Céspedes' debut film, which is dressed in great images, also seems extremely unusual due to its narrative style, which is interspersed with magical realism.
Céspedes, who also wrote the screenplay, sets his story apart from similar stories simply because of the perspective he chooses: We immerse ourselves in the world of 11-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés), who lives in a transgender community in the early 1980s. Transidentity, experienced through the eyes of a child who, as children are, is not bothered by it, but simply sees the members of this community as a loving, caring substitute family: You can hear the “Woke!” screams of this world collectively gasping for air. But Céspedes doesn't want to proselytize, but makes a strong, deeply humanistic, completely kitsch-free and fantastically acted plea for love – no matter what kind – as a connecting force between people.
11-year-old Lidia (Tamara Cortés) has found a replacement family in the queer community around trans woman Flamingo (Matías Catalán).
Chile, 1982: In a remote, rugged landscape that Sergio Leone would have delighted in, there is a small mining village in which almost only men live. The only change in this wasteland is the Alaska House, run by Mama Boa (Paula Dinamarca), the refuge of a group of trans women who give small performances every evening on a cabaret stage in front of a small audience that comment on the plot of the film. The performers all have animal names as pseudonyms: Eagle (Alexa Quijano), Lioness (Bruna Ramírez), Star (Sirena González), Piranha (Francisco Día Z) and Flamingo (Matías Catalán).
The latter, with her long legs, is the undisputed star of the group and is secretly desired by most men. The colorful community also lovingly looks after Lidia, who was adopted by Flamingo, and is completely behind her, which becomes clear in the first few minutes when the boys in the village tease the girl: Lidia's surrogate family is quite aggressive and immediately sets out to give the guys a hard time. But a mysterious illness, said to be transmitted through the gaze of a queer man, is plaguing the village. When a miner (Pedro Muñoz) in love with Flamingo falls ill, his feelings turn to hate, for which Flamingo has to pay bitterly. The other men, in turn, break into Alaska House and demand that the staff wear blindfolds in the future – while Lidia sets out to find out the secret of the plague…
The fear of the other
The name of the disease, AIDS, is never spoken – but it quickly becomes clear that the story is an allegory for the outbreak of the disease in the early 1980s. The film thus makes it clear how quickly fear of the other can lead to a fatal cycle, whereby the other does not only mean people from the LGBTQ+ spectrum, but also the other in all of us.
Ultimately, the men's relationship with the members of the Alaska House is characterized by a constant interplay of dislike and desire. The aversion that the group repeatedly experiences also results from an unacknowledged longing. The latter can seem frightening, and fear often leads to absurd theories – and in extreme cases can even turn into violence. It is toxic masculinity that the men of the village struggle with, even if some of them are actually cured of it after a strange argument with the trans women that makes the film slide into the absurd.
The film expands in many different directions – and at some point even touches on the Western genre!
You experience all of this in a square, narrow 4:3 format, which makes Lidia's world appear more direct and intimate. The girl is loved unconditionally by her surrogate family and she loves back – so much that she and her friend Julio (Vicente Caballero) not only set out to find more information about the disease, but also want to take revenge. This intention gives the film – which is not unlike its protagonists in their sometimes elusive manner – a slight Western touch. In one particularly surprising moment, he even uses extravagantly designed special effects to visualize the flamingo's gaze.
But despite his penchant for eccentricity, Céspedes never loses sight of the people: his camera explores the faces of the cast, which largely consists of extremely convincing amateur actors, with great curiosity. What remains particularly memorable are Lidia's looks, which are often permeated with melancholy, and who seem to become more and more aware of the complicated, cruel world in which she lives as the story progresses.
Conclusion: Magnificently staged surprise package, formally and tonally changeable, but never arbitrary, superbly acted, full of passion and, despite the 1980s setting, unfortunately still sadly close to the pulse of the times – the Chilean mountain village is ultimately the world in which we still live far too much.