We begin The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (2025) with a group of teenage boys pushing a young girl in a lake. She is Lidia, who was adopted by a group of trans women after they discovered her abandoned outside their canteen. As long as she can remember, they have been her mothers, sisters, and aunts. Not long after Lidia goes home defeated, her family returns and exacts their revenge upon the boys that bullied her.

Then a plague comes and threatens their existence.

This is my first film I watched with my new MUBI account, and it made me feel like I was a screener at a film festival. There was something so special about this film that I can’t quite put my finger on. This film is about the AIDS crisis, but it also feels like it could take place in the modern day. There’s a queer chosen family that is much celebrated today, but the complexities of that family are fleshed out to great effect. And throughout every scene, there’s an element of ambiguous magical realism that blurs the lines between anxious childhood and cynical adulthood.

The canteen Lidia’s family owns is both a sanctuary and a cage. Lidia’s family are undoubtedly outsiders in a mining community all too happy to pin this mysterious plague on them. Still, that doesn’t mean that the members of the community don’t enjoy the lip-synching contests Lidia’s family holds every year, or that they don’t respect Lidia. But there’s an overarching threat present throughout the film that makes The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo teeter between a sweet comedy-drama and a thriller at times. Instead of letting the transphobic outside world seep into the canteen’s walls, Céspedes makes it clear that the canteen’s very existence is a form of resistance. Amidst the rock and rubble is a house full of love and colors, whose inhabitants are happy to accept you in with open arms.

But that doesn’t mean things are harmonious inside. There are still hierarchies, whether it be between mother and daughter, daughter and grandmother, or daughter and sisters/cousins/distant cousins. Lidia is the central character, but through her eyes we see the various shades of function and dysfunction we see in this makeshift family. Everyone is there by choice, granting them a level of freedom to express themselves in a way that one wouldn’t necessarily find in a biological family. But this also creates conflict. Lidia’s journey is one of coming-of-age, but this also extends to the family. As they grapple with the change happening outside of the walls, they must contend with the changing dynamics of the group.

All of the fluidity within this film is anchored by a Latin American tradition: magical realism. I first fell in love with the genre through Pan’s Labyrinth, but The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo gives it a new queer identity. I was reminded of the writings of Pedro Lemebel, an openly gay Chilean writer who gave voice to the underrepresented trans community during the AIDS crisis and Chile’s dictatorship under Pinochet. Lemebel wrote about the brutality trans women experienced on the streets of Santiago, but he also wrote about the beauty and resilience of these women, as well as the effervescence of queerness. In the 1980s, queerness could mean ostracization from the rest of society, but it could also mean being free to express yourself and finding a family you would fight a war for. Queerness both brought inextricable pain, but also inextricable joy. If anything, it’s magical realism in its purest form.

Scenes involving the canteen lip-synching contests encapsulate the magical realism. When Lidia’s adopted mother Flamingo is performing, she is elegantly singing a love song like she is Madonna herself. She is control, she is enchanting, she has everyone in the audience holding onto every word. She is like a being from another world. Until her ex-lover Yovani interrupts the singing and calls her slurs, causing a fight that ends with Flamingo shaken. It’s a scene that transfixes you before hitting you in the face with the harsh reality. Even if there is a sanctuary in the brutal world of 1980s Chile, that feeling of freedom is fleeting. But what’s important is that it exists.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

• May Jacques Audiard never have peace after seeing this.
• I’m wondering which one of the ladies from Pose would fit in perfectly in this film. I feel like Blanca would do well.
• I’ve noticed magical realist films are at their best when they’re in rural areas. I think that’s intentional–crazy shit happens in the city everyday, but when you’re in the rural areas, doubt is always around the corner. It makes the private just a line that can be easily crossed.