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| Futuro Beach |
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| Director Karim Aïnouz |
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| director on the set |
MOTEL DESTINO B Brazil France Germany Great Britain (115 mi) 2024 d: Karim Aïnouz
Returning to Brazil in the post-Bolsonaro era after stints in Germany, Great Britain, and Algeria, queer Brazilian-Algerian director Karim Aïnouz drew inspiration for this film from a tradition of Brazilian cinema, the pornographic comedy (Pornochanchada), a very popular genre in the 70’s that had a distinct focus on the female anatomy, a lurid distraction from the brutal tactics of the oppressive Brazilian military dictatorship, giving rise to iconic actress Sônia Braga, who was the epitome of Brazilian films during the 70’s. With films like Bruno Barreto’s sexually explicit yet comically lighthearted Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands (Doña Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) (1976), or Arnaldo Jabor’s I LOVE YOU (Eu Ye Amo) (1981), there were also the extremely popular Carlos Diegues films XICA (1976) and Bye Bye Brazil (Bye Bye Brasil) (1980), all films that rejoice in a liberated spirit while displaying a healthy attitude towards nudity and sex. Working as assistant director to Todd Haynes in New York and Walter Salles in Rio de Janeiro, Aïnouz has made films with a distinct and innovative vision that transcends formal boundaries, where his first feature MADAME SATÃ (2002) was a trailblazing portrayal of a real-life black queer female impersonator and prolific street fighter, described by Film Quarterly as “a classic of queer cinema…well ahead of its time,” which was followed by The Silver Cliff (O Abismo Prateado) (2011), Futuro Beach (Praia do Futuro) (2014), and 2019 Top Ten List #4 Invisible Life (A Vida Invisível), works that range from experimental queer cinema to complex character studies and poetic explorations of family origins. A Brazilian tropical neo-noir premiering at Cannes that’s defiantly sexy, sweaty, and dripping with spontaneous energy, this film recreates space in an innovative way, as the vibrantly seductive, neon-colored cinematography by Hélène Louvart, who has shot some of the more visually distinctive works, is nothing less than inspired, shot on 16mm and Super 8mm, making the stunning visuals the strongest asset of the film, creating a subterranean, crime-drenched atmosphere that seems to exist in its own lurid world, allowing viewers to bathe in the brightness of the oversaturated colors and lighting. The sleazy sex motel setting of the film is like a central character, where the suffocating intimacy of desire is a prominent theme, questioning whether the marginalized characters are driven by their own circumstance or controlled by a fate they can’t escape, perhaps a reminder of the days of repression when people were forced to take refuge in the shadows of secretive places like this.
Written by Aïnouz with Wislan Esmeraldo and Mauricio Zacharias during the presidency of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro, this is set in Fortaleza, the site of Futuro Beach on the sunny ocean shores of Northeast Brazil, where hanging out at the beach is a foregone conclusion, as the blueness of the sea against the white sand always looks so inviting. It’s there that we find beads of water and sweat glistening against the black skin of 21-year old Heraldo (Iago Xavier) and his older brother Jorge (Renan Capivara) frolicking in the waves, like little kids. When Heraldo announces he wants to get out of town to look for work in São Paulo and start a new life, you might wonder why anyone would leave this idyllic paradise, but things are not what they seem, as the two brothers work for a crime boss Bambina (Fabiola Liper), who wants his debts paid before he leaves, so she orders them to pull off one last debt-collection job. Seeking refuge in a local beach bar the night before, Heraldo finds himself charmed by a beautiful stranger (Isabela Catão), quickly making their way to a brightly-lit roadside sex motel, Motel Destino, that never closes and rents by the hour or even half-hour, only to discover he’s overslept (likely sedated) and been ripped off by the young woman, leaving him in a spot, scrambling to get to his brother, but he arrives too late, as Jorge was forced to carry off the job alone, leaving him shot and killed. Having nowhere else to go, suddenly finding himself a fugitive needing to lay low for fear of retribution, he returns back to the Motel to hide out, curiously allowed entry by the owner’s wife Dayana (Nataly Rocha), who is intrigued to see him again after the desperate situation he found himself in earlier. The volatile ex-cop owner Elias, (Fábio Assunção, a former soap opera heartthrob), finds work for him to do around the place, and the film essentially revolves around this single location, which is a seedy world of sex and pleasure, a sinner’s paradise, accompanied by huge amounts of alcohol consumption. Heraldo proves himself a worthy handyman, easily fixing things that are broken, quickly gaining the confidence of Elias, with suggestions of homoeroticism. One of the things that’s interesting is that the characters are dressed in little more than bathing suits for most of the film, implying comfort, ease, and relaxation, with plenty of nudity and sex, yet remains shrouded in moral ambiguity, where there’s also a relentless foreboding layer of danger that hovers over everything we see, with suspense building quietly, suggesting these seemingly disparate lives are somehow intertwined.
As if stuck in a state of inertia, where not much actually happens (viewers may drift off as well), a dangerous love triangle quickly escalates into an erotic thriller, yet this is mostly a lingering human relationships film that delves into the unsettling aspects of the characters, with Heraldo having a steamy affair with Dayana, who assumes the sultry Sônia Braga role, as we’re mostly confined to cramped quarters, long empty hallways or back rooms away from the prying eyes of Elias. Perhaps it’s their situation of always living in the secrecy of isolation, where emotions are heightened, but a threatening danger is always hovering nearby, especially given the sexual voyeuristic effect of the Motel, with Elias frequently peering through the peepholes attached to each room, and the film’s abundant use of neon lights and surveillance footage, creating a saturated color palette, accompanied by the ambient sounds of moans and screams coming out of those rooms, along with an intentional use of outdoor animals who can also be seen fornicating. The interior spaces of the Motel can be seen in quite literally a new light, where a sensory landscape blurs the boundaries between what’s real and imagined, as the film is primarily about depicting its characters’ insatiable desires, whether they be sexual or vengeful, with an electronic and techno-fused soundtrack composed by Amine Bouhafa and Benedikt Schiefer adding another layer of sensory overload. Things quickly spill out of control when the oddly charismatic Elias celebrates his birthday with an alcohol-fused party sequence of the three of them together, but by then the frustrated Dayana has grown sick and tired of his violent and abusively domineering ways, pretending to placate his continually fluctuating moods by telling him what he wants to hear while secretly having eyes for Heraldo, both planning to escape together, where the dubious thought of killing Elias crosses their minds in an ode to Tay Garnett’s classic film noir The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), but this plays out differently, more like a surrealistic dreamscape, spilling into a fever dream of emotional chaos and dread, where only fate can free them, building to a heavy synth-infused, strobe-aligned, electronic pulse rave conclusion with flashing lights that blast over the end credits. One of the director’s comments was that this was specifically designed for the Cannes Film Festival theater screening, “It’s such a conservative space with people dressed up. I wanted [the end credits] to burn down the Lumière! There’s a sense of seriousness that’s so important to break.”
