Estanislao (2020)
Estanislao
”A narcissistic accountant returns to his childhood home to honor his mother's memory and confront his alcoholic father and a terrifying bird-like creature.”
Soon at your home
Trailer
Why watch this film?
Black and white photography, the unsettling presence of a bird-like entity, an urban, industrial, and dirty setting. We could certainly talk about 'Estanislao' as the Mexican cousin –and less surreal– of 'Eraserhead', by David Lynch. However, while the latter deals with the anguish of parental future, Alejandro Guzmán Alvárez's feature film works in the opposite direction, diving into the past, resentments, frustrations of the fragmented family nucleus and their repercussions in adult life, where reality paints a desolate picture. With one foot in the realm of fantasy, it suggests something as abstract and ambiguous as it is terrifying, as a background and counterpoint to a sordid panorama.
Filmelier
Our suggestions
Plot summary
Después de 15 años Mateo, un engreído contador regresa a la casa de su infancia para honrar la memoria de su madre recién fallecida. De paso, tendrá que convivir con su padre, un alcohólico al que no soporta y con una criatura en forma de ave que lo aterroriza todas las noches.
To share
Do you want to watch something different?
Watch full movies now!
Press play and be surprised!
Where to watch?
Soon at your home
Drama
Underdog
In its effort to raise awareness about the precarious social reality of certain sectors of the population, Mexican cinema tends to fall into miserabilism (or so-called "poverty porn"), whether in documentaries or fiction. The quest of Mexican cinema for new creative and narrative horizons is ongoing, and in the case of Underdog (Correr para vivir), director and co-writer Gerardo Dorantes opts for what, in its conventions, is an action and crime thriller extrapolated to the context of the Rarámuri (or Tarahumara) indigenous people of northern Mexico, famous for their running tradition (and their extraordinary talent for it). The plot follows two brothers: Omero (Vladimir Rivera), who dreams of being a runner; and Capó (Manuel Cruz Vivas), who is more talented but also troubled. Both are dragged into a life of service to the drug trade when Capó, in an attempt to provide for his pregnant girlfriend, fails in a cocaine delivery. To be honest, it's a good attempt to steer Mexican cinema towards other directions that are not the typical exploitation of social dramas or anthropological documentaries. However, the film ends up falling into the same vices, representing Rarámuri culture from a superficial and idealized exoticism, creating entertainment from a real social context with little sensitivity.
Downtown Owl
'Downtown Owl' - Searching for a break from her cosmopolitan life in Milwaukee, Julia Rabia (Lily Rabe), arrives in the closeknit Reagan-era town of Owl, North Dakota for a one-semester high school teaching job. But when the small town turns out to be a wonderland of second-string poets, smoldering Marlboro Men, and a social hierarchy that echoes high school, Julia doesn't know if she's come to town to get away from home or to find it. Ed Harris, Vanessa Hudgens, Henry Golding, and Finn Wittrock also star in this Great Plains dark dramedy directed by Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater. Based on the novel by Chuck Klosterman.
Baby
After his release from a juvenile center, Wellington finds himself homeless in São Paulo. At a porn theater, he meets Ronaldo, who mentors him in street survival. Their bond evolves into a turbulent affair.
Cake
'Cake' takes us into the darkly funny world of Claire Bennett (Jennifer Aniston) who initiates a dubious relationship with a widower (Sam Worthington) while confronting fantastical hallucinations of his dead wife (Anna Kendrick). With her feisty housekeeper cum caretaker (Adriana Barraza) ever at her side, Claire searches for human connection and self-forgiveness in this tale of personal redemption.
