The Silver Cliff (O Abismo Prateado)

 

THE SILVER CLIFF (O Abismo Prateado)     B                   

Brazil  (82 mi)  2011  d:  Karim Aïnouz

When you left me, my dear,                                                                 

You told me to be happy and well.                                                       

I wanted to die of envy, almost went crazy,                                          

But afterward, as usual, I took heed.                                                    

If you want to see me again,                                                                 

You're going to see me remade, it's true.                                              

Eye to eye,                                                                                          

I want to see what you will do,                                                             

When you realize that without you I am doing so well.                           

I'm looking younger,                                                                            

and catch myself singing for no reason at all.                                         

So much has happened,                                                                       

So many men have loved me                                                                

More fully and much better than you.                                                    

If by chance you need me one day,                                                      

You're always welcome, come over.                                                    

Eye to eye.                                                                                          

I want to see what you will say,                                                            

How you will bear it to see me so happy.                                             

—Chico Buarque “Olhos nos Olhos” (Eye to Eye)

Aïnouz, who directed the unconventional MADAME SATÃ (2002) about the anguishing life of a drag queen, which won the Chicago Film Festival 1st Prize that year, has made a much more quietly conventional film here, set in the busy Rio de Janeiro district along the beach, where the viewer is immediately immersed in the noise and sidewalk rhythms of a thriving city, a neighborhood where the well-to-do live.  It’s here that we see middle-aged Djalma (Otto Jr.) make his way from an ocean swim to what appears to be a passionate morning sexual encounter with his wife Violeta (Alessandra Negrini) before heading out of town for a brief business trip.  All appears well in the world as Violeta sends her son to school and wanders through the same city streets on her way to work as a dentist.  Without notice and seemingly without reason, Violeta is blindsided by a phone message from her husband telling her that they’re marriage is over, which sends her reeling back out into the streets again, this time to a dizzying effect, where the city that appeared friendly and inviting in the opening suddenly feels harsh and threatening.  The mood shift is so starkly unbalanced that Negrini appears to be overacting, as where there was calm is now a storm, as she is simply unable to comprehend the impersonal nature of making such a life-altering decision on a phone message. 

Like any woman of means, Violeta decides to hop on the next plane in search of her husband, but she’s frustrated to the point of disoriented at missing the last flight out, grabbing a cheap motel room nearby where she is immersed in the uninviting noise of city confusion, stepping into a neighborhood disco where they’re inexplicably playing the hyperkinetic Jennifer Beals music out of FLASHDANCE (1983), Michael Sembello’s “Maniac,” Maniac - michael sembello - YouTube  (4:05), where Negrini’s surreal out of body experience on the dance floor is indicative of her frantic, mind-bending state of anxiety, eventually thrust back out into the city streets, finding solace in the nearby beach.  Calmed somewhat afterwards, Aïnouz beautifully shifts the entire mood of the film, shifting the focus from Violeta who has commanded the screen for nearly the duration of the film to a young unidentified girl, Bel (Gabi Pereira), who seems surprisingly mature for her age, almost as if she’s living alone on the streets, where she seems to be handling life’s difficulties with more self-assurance than Violeta, where this meeting literally smacks her in the face like a jolt of reality.  As it turns out, Bel is with her father, Thiago Martins, and the two of them are living in his van, stopping at the nearby beach for ice cream.  The mood of doubt and confusion has been replaced by a curious fascination with discovering this playful young girl.

As this trio moves through the city together like newly discovered friends, the audience is treated to multiple tracking shots of Rio de Janeiro at night, dark but strangely luminescent, still pulsating with an undiscovered mystery that is the heart of every magical city, making this a love letter to the city where Violeta’s internal search for missing answers has been replaced by the soothing rhythms of Rio, beautifully captured on 35 mm film by Mauro Pinheiro (who might have shot this in ‘Scope), whose sensual images light up the screen.  There’s an underlying melancholic tone that continues throughout, where often nothing much happens, allowing extended wordless sequences to set the mood, with perhaps an overreliance at the end on what inspired the film in the first place, a 1976 song “Olhos Nos Olhos” (Eye to Eye) by Chico Buarque, Chico Buarque - Olhos nos Olhos  seen on YouTube (4:32), a kind of revengeful defiance following an abrupt end of a love affair.  The film does nothing surprising, but Negrini’s anguished performance is accompanied by a lush visualization of her internalized realm, something the director beautifully intermixes with the revelation of discovering the young girl, who seems to be the secret surprise of the entire film. 

Southwest (Sudoeste)

SOUTHWEST (Sudoeste)                   B-                     

Brazil  (128 mi)  2011  Super ‘Scope (3.66 Aspect Ratio)  d:  Eduardo Nunes

What starts out as a film with tremendous promise eventually dies a slow death of dullness and utter predictability by the end of the picture, as this is largely an exercise in visual stylization, shot by Mauro Pinheiro using Black and White film with a super Widescreen aspect ratio of 3.66, while ‘Scope is 2:35, but unfortunately a choice was made to shoot the movie on HD Video, so only the middle sliver of the screen is used, none of it in the sharp focus of 35 mm, while 30 to 40 % of the movie screen both on top and below are unused, which gives the feel of a movie that was simply projected wrong, and would be even less visible on a TV screen, probably unwatchable.  The director was present and he also reported the sound design was incorrect, as the stereo sound should move throughout the various sections of the theater and from front to back.  Granted, if the movie made use of an entire ‘Scope-sized movie screen, this might possess a more powerful effect, as the film is gorgeous to look at, but the real problem lies with the detached and uninvolving nature of the story itself, a combined effort written by the director and William Sarmiento, which near wordlessly follows one day in the life of a young girl Clarice who ages throughout the day, ending up near death from old age by evening.  Once the audience figures out what’s happening, as her character continually evolves to new actresses playing her part, which initially is so beautifully confusing, nothing that follows appears strange or unique, but just seems to predictably follow the storyline.  While there is a moody opening sequence, the cinematographer is obviously under the influence of Béla Tarr, who uses real film, by the way, but also uses extremely slow pans where the camera acts as an all observing eye, where nothing is ever explained, but sequences gather momentum as information is accumulated over time.  Not so in this film, where information detracts from the overall impact which is strongest in the beginning when the audience hasn’t a clue what’s going on. 

Supposedly ten years in the making due to lack of funding, as the film is too slow for commercial possibilities, the film is largely a fantasy realization but shown using a grim, ultra realistic look, shot in Brazil on actual isolated coastal locations, where ironically Brazil has no Southwest coast, all of which lends itself to magical realism.  But initially the dour mood that pervades the opening scenes is broken by the unexpected presence of a young girl, Clarice (Rachel Bonfante), who appears out of nowhere, but bears the same name as a previous character that is already dead and buried, where she could be a ghost or the secret appearance of her unborn child, also presumed dead, or simply a metaphor for life, which begins and ends all too quickly.  Bonfante is the best thing in the film, shot in the bright light of morning, as she barely utters a word but captures volumes of emotion on her face, where she always appears a bit puzzled, like a wandering spirit that is simply lost, but she innocently latches onto whoever feels like taking care of her and especially enjoys playing with another child, João (Victor Navega Motta), often sharing special secrets with him.  It was João’s curiosity that found Clarice in the first place, so she seems to have a special bond with him, which gets a bit peculiar when she ages, not realizing it herself, apparently, still acting childlike and playful.  But it turns out they share a special history that accounts for the peculiar opening sequence, but the only ones truly haunted by her presence appear to be the adults, who tend to avoid her, suggesting they are uncomfortable and in denial by what she represents.

As Clarice ages, the other young actresses never make that initial connection to match Bonfante, who truly dazzles onscreen, which creates a kind of disconnect with her character.  The film couldn’t be more detached and disorienting as it is, but when the characters become more ordinary, her storyline loses interest.  The youngest character delighted us with utter amazement, while the older characters simply lack her personality, where they appear less like an apparition or an unexplained oddity and more like a typical young girl.  Certainly what she undergoes is a bewildering transformation, but there’s little complexity about the experience that is shared with the audience, where instead she ages as is appropriate for the storyline rather than unexpectedly and with great surprise.  There’s an interesting festival pageant on a tiny scale in this poverty stricken village that produces a costumed character that can only be compared to a similar haunting presence of death in BLACK ORPHEUS (1959), where this outcome is equally appalling, leaving Clarice alone to fend for herself, where what’s particularly striking is just how isolated and alone she has become, where the pervasive mood swings to near horror.  There are subliminal images matching a haunting sound design that clearly indicate something is amiss, terrifying as in otherworldly, but the director neglects to follow up on this bit of unpleasantness and instead trudges forward with the inevitable that we knew was coming for the final two-thirds of the film.   Long, slow, and uninvolving, this will be infuriorating to some, very much in the feel of copycat Béla Tarr, but without the depth, stark imagery, acid humor, and modernist humanism on display. 

Note:  Kudos to Marilyn Ferdinand who has apparently written the first and only English language review found of this film at Ferdy on Films seen here:  CIFF 2011: Southwest (Sudoeste, 2011) - Ferdy on Films.