Totem follows the story of a seven year old girl who is witness to the preparation involving her father’s birthday. But slowly as the evening progresses, she gets to know that this might be her father’s last birthday given that he has been suffering from a prolonged illness. The story here is deliberately disoriented and scattered while only briefly being heartfelt and never heartbreaking, something that immediately reflects the mindset of the little seven year old and her first brush with the concept of death. The screenplay standing at just under a 90 minutes might seem understated but if you are willing to attentively subject yourself in the drama then you would realise the kind of depth that the writing incorporates in its duration. This section will contain spoilers. 

The drama begins in a restroom with the introduction of a seven year old girl, Sol who is sharing a private giggly moment with her mother who tells her to practice a song for her father’s birthday. The mood of the drama is light-hearted wherein you are acquainted with the fact that there is a party later in the evening owing to Sol’s father’s birthday, something that has kept her lively throughout the day. But this mood suddenly changes in the very next scene when Sol tells her mother to stop at a bridge as she wanted to make a wish about her father being alive for a long time, this as the face of Sol’s mother falls. These two scenes are perfectly representative of two aspects in the lifetime of humans – life and death, while also alerting the viewers on the drama to follow. 

The proceedings are interesting and very subtle and niche with its themes from that point wherein you need to be quite attentive with the conversations traspiring. So Sol is dropped at her aunts’ place who are organizing a party for Sol’s father, Tona who is not quite shown in the first half of the film. It is only when Sol questions whether her father loves her and cares for her is when her aunt replies that he needs rest to be ready for the party. It is through these mundane conversations that you get an account of Tona’s illness who is suffering from cancer, much like his mother who passed away due to the same reason(she was previously confined to the bedroom where Tona finds himself in), and his father who is a cancer survivor but lost his ability to speak. 

Throughout the course of the drama, you see contrasting behaviors towards the situation of potential death that is prevalent in the household. Sol is oblivious of the fact while briefly absorbing the atmospherics around her, even as she occasionally wishes to know random things on her phone like ‘When will the world end’ or ‘what happens after death’. This is in contrast to other folks of the household who have encountered deaths previously and are more accepting and used to it with each one having their own ways to deal with it. In fact, at one point, one of the aunts is shown to call a person to remove all evil spirits from the household and thereby have positive vibes in the room thus inducing a tinge of black humour along the way. 

The party that takes place in the evening was unofficially a farewell party for Tona who barely has the strength to standup while also soiling his pants signalling his downward spiral. But he does have a moment to witness his ‘funeral’ whilst he is alive, much unlike most of us would ever have the privilege of. And slowly through the night, Sol is acquainted with the one truth of life which in death, in one of my favourite climax scenes of recent times. Tona is asked to blow the candles on his cake while being told to make a wish, something that he refuses in jest. This sequence makes Sol realise that even a wish(used as a foreshadow from the second scene of the film) won’t be able to save her father. The screenplay enters a heartfelt space although it isn’t entire heartbreaking given that the eventual fate of Tona is kept under wraps and never really shown. But overall, the screenplay catches you off guard as it makes you ponder on the mysteries surrounding us related to life and death.