Synopsis
Lotería is inspired by the Mexican bingo game of the same name. In the game, players try to match pictorial cards drawn at random to their own game boards. The first person to get four in a row declares “Lotería” and wins the game. Likewise, the structure of the film is divided in four chapters, each corresponding with a card from the traditional game:
Pt. I: La Dama
María, a bathroom attendant at the nightclub “El Infierno,” longs to be a famous singer. When a mysterious woman in red disappears from the nightclub, María begins to have a series of disturbing nightmares taking place in a motel room. Suffering from insomnia and hallucinations, María is fired from her job.
Pt. II: El Diablo
Unable to pay rent, María is kicked out of her apartment. She goes to a motel at the edge of town where she finds a newspaper clipping advertising which leads her to a talent agency run by an enigmatic figure in a devil mask named “El Diablo.” Maria agrees to sign a talent contract with the stipulation that she will never return to El Infierno.
Pt. III: La Rosa
María is quickly catapulted to fame but continues to have nightmares. She agrees to headline a performance at El Infierno to spite her despicable ex-boss, El Cerdo. With her contract broken, María is dropped from the agency. María returns to the motel where she finds a detective waiting for her. He informs María that a murder was committed in the room. María is interrogated and eventually released on lack of evidence. But news of her ties to the murder spread - María’s reputation is ruined.
Pt. IV: El Mundo
María accepts a proposition from El Cerdo, who takes her to the motel room. El Cerdo attacks María and she kills him. El Diablo appears, claiming to see Maria’s true self. Maria tells El Diablo they’re wrong -- they’ve only seen fractured images of her. She sings a ballad for El Diablo about her past life, deceased parents, immigration, a stolen past, and the unfulfilled promise of the future. María removes El Diablo’s mask, revealing The Woman in Red, who sets María’s contract aflame. Together they escape into the desert night.
Settings & Themes
Lotería is set in the fictional town of ‘Soledad’, a liminal border town where time and space work in peculiar ways. In this town, it is always night and it almost seems as though no other place else exists but the town itself. The liminality of Soledad acts as a sort of purgatory for its inhabitants, particularly for Lotería’s protagonist, María, an undocumented immigrant who works as a bathroom attendant at the vaudevillian nightclub, “El Infierno”. María dreams of performing on the nightclub’s stage as a renowned singer but due to her circumstances, cannot transcend her position. A mysterious woman’s disappearance from the nightclub triggers a strange and nightmarish sequence of event which leads to María down a dizzying path through dreams, desire, fame, and identity.
Lotería is a story of identity and perseverance which offers diverse Latinx characters that are genuine and complex, rather than token. During a time of heightened tensions around US-Mexico border politics and immigration, Lotería gives important visibility to an underrepresented perspective through genre-based storytelling.
