History Filtered Through Imagination

Read Time:5 Minute, 25 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (La misteriosa mirada del flamenco)
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Genre: Drama, Coming-of-Age
Year Released: 2025, 2026
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director(s): Diego Céspedes
Writer(s): Diego Céspedes
Cast: Tamara Cortés, Matías Catalán, Paula Dinamarca, Pedro Muñoz, Luis Dubó
Where to Watch: landing on Video-on-Demand in North America January 20, 2026, available on Amazon and Vimeo

RAVING REVIEW: What does fear look like when it’s passed down as a myth from one person to another, rather than fact? THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO approaches that question with patience, filtering terror through the eyes of a child and allowing imagination, rumors, and love to coexist without flattening any of them into simple allegory.

Set in a remote Chilean mining town in the early 1980s, the film unfolds from the perspective of Lidia, a young girl raised within a close-knit household that exists just far enough outside social norms to become an easy target. As an unknown illness begins to spread and hysteria follows, the town latches onto a rumor that feels both absurd and horrifyingly plausible: that the disease can be transmitted through a look, through love, through the gaze itself. Writer/director Diego Céspedes treats this myth not as a metaphor with a heavy underline, but as lived folklore, the kind of belief that thrives when fear outpaces knowledge.

What gives the film its clarity is Céspedes’ decision to anchor everything in Lidia’s perception. The story never collapses into hindsight or historical instruction. Instead, it allows confusion to remain confusion. Moments of violence, tenderness, and surreal imagery coexist because that is how a child processes the world around her. The result is a film that feels intuitive rather than explanatory, trusting the audience to sit with ambiguity rather than resolve it.

Tamara Cortés delivers a remarkable performance as Lidia, balancing toughness and vulnerability without sentimentality. Her presence grounds the film even as its visuals drift into dreamlike territory. She observes more than she speaks, and the camera treats her gaze as something active rather than passive. Through her eyes, Céspedes explores how myths are born, how prejudice disguises itself as protection, and how love becomes both refuge and risk.

The queer community at the film’s center is portrayed with warmth and specificity, never reduced to symbols or suffering alone. Paula Dinamarca’s Mama Boa emerges as the emotional backbone of the film, embodying a form of care shaped by experience and loss rather than optimism. Her relationship with Clemente offers one of the film’s counterpoints to despair, not as denial, but as proof that connection can survive even when the world insists on collapse.

Matías Catalán’s Flamingo exists somewhere between memory, desire, and legend, intentionally resisting straightforward characterization. Céspedes understands that some figures live in how they are remembered rather than how they behave. Flamingo’s presence endures long after he leaves the frame, reinforcing the film’s fixation on absence and the way stories grow in the space left behind.

The film offers a striking visual experience without being ornamental. Angello Faccini’s cinematography leans into textures of dust, water, and darkness, creating a landscape that feels both grounded and slightly unreal. The western influence Céspedes speaks of is present, but filtered through a child’s imagination rather than as any homage. Motorbikes replace horses; a cabaret functions as a saloon; confrontations feel mythic without losing their emotional weight.

The score by Florencia Di Concilio adds another layer of emotional guidance, never instructing the audience how to feel, but subtly reinforcing the film’s shifts between intimacy and threat. Music, like the gaze itself, becomes a conduit for emotion rather than explanation.

The film’s pacing reflects a clear confidence in atmosphere and emotional accumulation rather than urgency. Céspedes allows moments to linger, trusting repetition and stillness to deepen meaning instead of rushing toward some payoff. That patience gives the film space to let its symbols breathe. What emerges is a work guided by resonance rather than being rushed, one that values memory over momentum and rewards viewers willing to sit with it.

What ultimately sets THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO apart is its refusal to frame queerness solely through tragedy. While the film acknowledges violence, loss, and fear, it never treats its characters as disposable vessels for historical suffering. Joy exists here; humor exists; community exists. Even vengeance, when it appears, is filtered through imagination rather than brutality.

Céspedes has crafted a debut that feels personal without becoming insular. By blending folklore, memory, and political reality, he creates a film that speaks across generations without flattening its specificity. It’s a story about how myths are used to justify cruelty, but also about how stories themselves can become tools for survival. THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO doesn’t demand to be understood. It asks to be felt, remembered, and revisited, much like the histories it quietly mourns and preserves.

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[photo courtesy of QUIJOTE FILMS, LES VALSEURS, WEYDEMANN BROS., IRUSOIN, WRONG MEN NORTH, ARTE FRANCE CINÉMA, ARTE FRANCE, CHARADE FILMS, ALTERED INNOCENCE]

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