Movie Review: 'Tótem' is a masterful child's-eye view of family and death

The year is young but you’re unlikely to see a film as richly textured as Avilés’ masterful child’s-eye view of death and family

For a film about death, Lila Avilés’ “Tótem” is extraordinarily lived in.

Avilés’ camera roams through the festive, cluttered gathering of an extended family as they prepare for a birthday celebration that evening. Watching it all is the 7-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes), whose father, Tonatiuh or “Tona” (Mateo Garcia), is to be feted.

The scenes are familiar, unfolding with a natural, warm disorder. Tona’s sisters are there. Alejandra (Marisol Gasé) is working in the kitchen and dyeing her hair. Nuri (Montserrat Marañón) is making a cake while her own daughter, Ester (Saori Gurza), lurks about. There’s bickering and laughter.

But humdrum as all of this is, colossal and devastating happenings are at work in “Tótem.” When we sporadically spy Tona, who stays in his bedroom for much of the film, he’s weak and strikingly gaunt, debilitated by cancer. In the film’s opening moments, Sol is riding in her mother’s (Iazua Larios) car. While passing beneath a bridge, they hold their breath and make a wish.

“Should I tell you what it was?” Sol says after emerging from the darkness. “I wished for Daddy not to die.”