Movie Discovery of the Day: El águila y el gusano (2023) by Guita Schyfter

A surreal, grotesque and darkly hilarious fresco of the ills of Mexican society. In Guita Schyfter’s El águila y el gusano, an intricate plot serves to intersect the destinies of several characters: the owner of a beauty salon in love with “all things Chinese”, a politician with a taste for oration who couldn’t care less about the problems of his country, a political adviser whose counsel is never considered and a shady investigator with a name that nobody seems to recall. The script by Schyfter and Hugo Hiriart, her longtime collaborator and author of the 2013 novel on which the film is based, bristles with finely-crafted, hilarious dialogue. Link IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16030178/ Link to watch: https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2024/films/el-%C3%A1guila-y-el-gusano (available online 32Jan-4Feb, IFFR ,2024)