Prolific Mexican Canadian auteur Nicolás Pereda delivers a sly, pleasurable, and provocative meditation on desire as manifested through roles, identity, and representation, working with an inspired efficiency of scale.

Continuing his longstanding and evolving collaboration with the Mexican theatre collective Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol (founded by Luisa Pardo and Gabino Rodriguez, a.k.a. Lázaro Rodriguez), the film follows a trio of forty-something friends in Mexico City enmeshed in a tepid yet tender love triangle. As Lázaro, Luisa, and Francisco undertake auditions for a coveted role in the same film, the project director’s unorthodox casting methods lead the friends and lovers to question their aspirations and the roles they inhabit in their daily lives. Lázaro has, after all, changed his name, much to the irritation of his mother (Pereda regular Teresita Sánchez).

Boundaries further blur at a dinner party when a voice from the past points to an unexpected, wondrous fissure, and a fantastical twist. Perhaps with some inspiration from Argentinean literary avant-gardist César Aira and his “flight forward” writing technique, Lázaro at Night moves in mysterious ways, from disaffection to enchantment to fabulation, but always with a deft touch. A summoned Aladdin is a fine (and funny) example of humility in a world of plenty (with Tupperware). For Pereda, there is nothing trivial about the seemingly insignificant, and, to quote from Aira, “The gifts of magic are enjoyed in a reality, in a less magical world, an everyday reality. Perhaps, if we were to prolong enchantment, we would lose all the pleasure of its benefit.”

ANDRÉA PICARD