Mexican film “Moscas” in the cinema | Strange ways of friendship

An unusual rapprochement begins between Olga (Teresita Sánchez) and Christian (Bastian Escobar) via the slot machine. Photo: © Kinotitlán It's a simple story that could take place anywhere in the world. The fact that we meet a father and his nine-year-old son in Mexico City of all places seems to be pure coincidence. The mother is in the hospital, she has cancer, and the father comes with his son to be close to her. They are simple people and being sick is expensive, so the father looks for cheap accommodation not far from the hospital. A film about the silent losers in life that are easy to overlook.

Olga, a woman in her mid-50s, lives right across the street in a worn-out block of flats and, as you can see straight away, is done with life. The disappointment has made her hard and distant; no one needs to expect anything from her anymore. But she also needs money, which is why she rents out a room for relatives of patients. So a meeting of these shadow existences is inevitable, in the middle of Mexico City, a metropolis that is fighting against its dissolution into mere slums.

The opening scene of this film, shot consistently in black and white by Fernando Eimbcke, probably gave it its title: “Moscas” – “Flies”. A synonym for superfluous, useless existence?

One morning, Olga chases one such fly, which buzzes particularly annoyingly, as if this harmless insect were her mortal enemy. A lot of things break, and the insect spray she finally uses takes her breath away. So flies, annoying existences, almost parasites in the eyes of established society, like the three that this film tells about?

It immediately becomes clear that Tulio and his son Christian have a close father-son relationship. There is no need for long explanations between them. And so Tulio (Hugo Ramírez) secretly takes Christian (Bastian Escobar) every evening to the room he rents from Olga. There he has to keep quiet and is a kind of stowaway in the subtenancy. That saves money.

But Olga (Teresita Sánchez) lives at a great and even harsh distance from her environment, but that doesn't make her observe it any less closely. So she tracks down the child who was omitted from the price calculation, not only demands additional payment, but also wants to throw them out the door immediately and threatens to go to the police. Olga is obviously not aware of any solidarity sentiments. No wonder, since she spends her days in front of the television or playing on the computer.

Like Christian, whose father almost lost him to the computer game “Cosmic Defenders”. Killing all enemies as quickly as possible is the essence of this annoying game, whose machine noises sound like fanfares of banal evil. So is this a film about the beginning of a child's addiction to gaming, the immersion in an artificial parallel world from which there is no longer any escape?

Fernando Eimbcke has a surprising directorial idea that ultimately brought “Moscas” to this year’s Berlinale.

No, on the contrary. The emotions come unexpectedly, but are therefore all the stronger. The father can no longer pay the rent for two and also the medication for the mother, so he takes a job at short notice for a few days and leaves Christian alone with the landlady. She doesn't want to see him and banishes him to his room. But he is nine years old and therefore not simply silent and certainly not invisible. He also develops an amazing persistence. He wants to visit his mother in the hospital immediately, but children are not allowed in there.

But Christian proves to be a resourceful fighter - he apparently got that from the video game in which he became a champion. Time and time again, the little money he manages to raise ends up in the slot machine. A predictably dreary fate? No, Fernando Eimbcke has a surprising directorial idea that ultimately brought “Moscas” to this year’s Berlinale.

Because Olga also has more in common with "Cosmic Defenders" than she can express - two people now meet who believe in a modern fairy tale world, no matter how reduced and damaged it is. When he plays, she tells him, he has to "penetrate the machine." "Mind and fingers" should become one, says Olga, who suddenly becomes Christian's coach in this game. All of this seems highly questionable from a socio-educational perspective, but using the slot machine as a vehicle, an unusual rapprochement begins between Olga and Christian.

The paths of friendship are so strange - sometimes they lead right through a slot machine in a run-down area in Mexico City. And of course the background is the terminally ill mother, whom Christian wants to visit but is not allowed to. That's why Olga and Christian hatch a plot.

How everything started between them? With a spoiled sandwich that made Olga think she might have a fever. But the thermometer is broken. So Christian takes the misanthropic landlady's temperature - the way his mother always did with him: with a long kiss on the forehead. There's something transformative about it, something almost redeeming for Olga.

A strange, sparse film that feels unexpectedly human, even though we learn almost nothing about the actors, their background or their intentions. The only thing that becomes clear in these 102 minimalistically told minutes is that there is a lot of unlived life buried within them and that the imagination leads them down crazy (deviant) paths - and it achieves an unexpected intensity.

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