When a character declares “I may be a whore, a thief, a liar, but I’ll never be a deserter”, it is because they mean it. Director Diego Céspedes focuses his attention on a queer family. Huddled together against the citizens of this Chilean town, the clan experience physical threats, purportedly because they can spread “plague” just by looking at the victim. Lidia, the 11-year-old daughter of the eponymous “flamingo”, does her own research into the disease, only to discover it isn’t a hex at all. It’s something far more devastating.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is a superb hybrid of genres. Driven by queer energy, Céspedes’ work is clearly based on the AIDS epidemic, evident from the legions on one of the supposed victims who feel foul to the “Flamingo’s curse”, but proves to be a riot for most of the first hour. A collage of colour, conversation and clothing, this motion picture is also a commentary on toxic Chilean masculinity, proving that ignorance is the greatest fear of all.
Such is the power The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo exudes, it may very well end up on this year’s dirtyliciousest movies of the year list. Strong words for so early in 2025, yet it’s no random platitude. Céspedes has not only re-energised gay cinema, in some ways he re-invented the form. It’s simple: Lidia, a well intentioned but starry eyed pre-teen, is sheltered by a drag artist known as ‘Flamingo’, who can fight any man worth his salt. Transvestites are commonly seen as effete beings, but this family pulverise a group of teenage bullies early on in the proceedings. No strangers to bloodshed, they collectively stand together against a love-lorn villager armed with a gun.
He pleads to Flamingo to cure him, a cleanse unavailable “in the rich countries” when the story is set. As it is the 1980s, this collection of LGBT tearaways have no one to support them but each other. Mama Boa has trained her flock well: “senorita”, they bark whenever someone addresses them in the male form. Gorgeously costumed, Céspedes pays full attention to the pageantry, an explosion of primary colours and dark tints.
Flamingo, appropriately, is the most flamboyant looking; wafts of blond hair dangling over scantily pieced together clothing. Only Lidia dresses down, searching for her own voice in a commune that espouses love and abandons conventionality. She watches grown men go to the toilet sitting down, and hears tales of glorious, lustful sex, but everyone in this community would kill for Lidia as if she were their own blood. It’s a stability lost to other Chileans who wander between bars and aimless sexual conquests in the hope of acquiring meaning and purpose.
It’s clear to the viewers that the “curse” is a thinly-veiled metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases, but to experience it in real time, ie through the eyes of an innocent child, gifts this project a tenebrous, eerie edge. Lidia’s friend explains the curse to her: Flamingo brings her lovers into the woods, beaming lasers into their eyes. Cleverly, the director cuts back to an alternative scenario,two men mid coitus. Through blood and semen they rise just as steadily as they fall.
The final third is the most difficult, particularly as it explores how widespread Aids was in the 1980s. Much like the television series It’s A Sin (Peter Hoar, 2021) did before it, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo seems weightier precisely because the opening sections rippled with animation, vitality and laughter. In both It’s A Sin and The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, the central protagonists are so likeable, it makes their illnesses so much tougher to sit through.
“I’m going to tell you what I know and you’re going to imagine it,” teenager Julio explains to Lidia, embellishing the details with a fervent imagination. The girl is given a starker explanation at another juncture: diseases are spread between men when they sleep together. That an act of love could bring so many to an untimely grave is one of life’s crueller felicities, but it was a facet that called so many queer men to question their choices during the latter part of the 20th century.
Mama Boa seems alluring, enticing men with idle stories and frenetic dance movements. “I only kiss when I’m married,” Boa teases, leading to a jovial wedding scene. The frivolity helps the queer contingent stay strong at a time when Chilean miners would happily crush their heads with bare hands. Boa offers nicknames to each of the “children” as a mark of respect. Piranha’s nickname stemmed from the violent way they performed fellatio; Star had a tendency to walk like a diva; and Flamingo had long legs that drew men. Each has a personality trait that drew them to Boa.
What Céspedes outlines in this genuinely dazzling and tear-jerking piece of work is that a life without love is no life at all. Lidia’s predicament may be surprising, but it’s driven by respect. Engaging with the group during drag shows, walkabouts and weddings, she has a bond with a troupe that will stay with her in bad times and good. More than that, she has learned the value of research in a town engaged in ignorance. Hopefully viewers will walk away from that screening too.The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is easily one of 2025’s better films.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 78th Festival de Cannes, where it won the Best Film prize. Also showing at Karlovy Vary, at San Sebastian, and at the Tallinn Black Nights.
