Journal | Lagoonscapes
Monographic journal issue | 4 | 2 | 2024
Research Article | “I Can’t Control It”: Lila Avilés’s Feature Films as Environmental Mourning
“I Can’t Control It”: Lila Avilés’s Feature Films as Environmental Mourning
Abstract
Climate change has had a profound impact on Mexico. Notably, in 2024, climate scientist Claudia Sheinbaum was elected president. Mexican filmmaker Lila Avilés’s two feature films – La camarista (The Chambermaid, 2018) and Tótem (Totem, 2024) – have garnered significant press attention but little scholarly analysis. Through a detailed examination of Avilés’s portrayal of hygiene and animals, the author argues that the films highlight humanity’s interconnectedness with nature and reflect the failed efforts – through religion, psychology, politics, and other means – to control it. In this sense, Avilés films the ‘anthropological machine’ in the making, and these works should be understood as instances of environmental mourning.
Submitted: Aug. 6, 2024 | Accepted: Sept. 11, 2024 | Published Dec. 6, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Cinema • Death • Environmental mourning • Lila Avilés • Mexico
Copyright © 2024 Kevin Anzzolin. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/LGSP/2785-2709/2024/02/008
