Motel Destino

Futuro Beach

 

Director Karim Aïnouz

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.”

Oslo Trilogy: Love (Kjærlighet)

 

Writer/director Dag Johan Haugerud

OSLO TRILOGY: LOVE (Kjærlighet)         A-                                                                 Norway  (119 mi)  2024  d: Dag Johan Haugerud

At its core, the film is about how to do good.  I believe fiction plays a decisive role in imagining alternative worlds and perspectives.  It allows people to express themselves and act in ways that are often unusual.  For me, an important function of fiction is to inspire new ways of thinking in real life.     —Writer/director Dag Johan Haugerud

The chatty and stagy opening section of the Oslo Trilogy: Sex, which is largely shot indoors, is followed by a more lyrical expanse that becomes a more sensual, atmospheric expression of the city and its surrounding regions, even more free and tenderly fluid than the earlier part, telling two very individualistic stories about the ways of love, offering a range of responses to love and sex, exploring themes of sexuality, relationships, and intimacy, with a more emphatic expression of queerness that may be appealing to a broader audience, with an emphasis on getting people to talk about sexuality in a more open way, while also exploring the boundaries of love in relationships without always feeling pressured by norms and rules.  Officially celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the city of Oslo adapting its name, transitioning from the Danish Kristiania, or Christiania, named after King Christian IV, one of Denmark’s many rulers over Norway, this segment emphasizes the modern identity of the capital, which is over 1,000 years old, complete with a guided walking tour of some of the essential monuments, led by Heidi (Marte Engebrigtsen), a project manager for the city who works in the cultural department, where she’s busy planning events for the upcoming centenary celebration.  Her focus is on the old Oslo, symbolized by the town hall at the gates of the harbor, behind which the city center opens, analyzing various sculptures and frescoes through a queer and sexual lens, explaining the fluid sexualities of the sculptures suggest an unusual openness to the city, “Every aspect of it radiates humanity,” something like the Norwegian understanding of being human, demonstrating a welcoming and recognizable concern for people, inclusive of everybody, but she encounters pushback from colleagues, who prefer to invite popular author Karl Ove Knausgård.  Complicated and thoughtful, but never intrusive, written and directed by Haugerud, who has long been known in Norway as a novelist, where he manages to make his characters talk about their expectations and love experiences with remarkable lightness in this unusually conversation-driven comedy of manners, yet what really stands out is the beautiful use of the ferry operating between Oslo and Nesodden, an offshore peninsula in the Oslofjord where the warm tones by cinematographer Cecilie Semec are more pronounced, undoubtedly the most beautiful of the three segments, with views of Oslo from the water, where a wider expanse allows us to see the prevalence of water all around the city, with poetic, shifting patterns of light between day and night, including shots of the harbor in the darkness, eloquently capturing the nocturnal evening moods, as you can see the whole beauty of Oslo and the surrounding mountains during the many ferry trips, recalling the barge floating down the River Seine in Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer (Quatre nuits d'un rêveur) (1971).  The ferry is a central location where characters meet as they come and go, acting as a neutral space, or a kind of stream-of-conscious, inner world for the characters, representing a middle ground between the different romantic destinations and lifestyles they are exploring, as so much is revealed in these short distance travels, articulating the complexity of relationships and the different ways of establishing a human connection, apparently inspired by the unmistakable cinema of Éric Rohmer’s TALES OF THE FOUR SEASONS, spread out over the decade of the 90’s, dedicated to the art of conversation and the rules of attraction.  Funded entirely by Norwegian money, the second to be filmed (but third chronologically), there’s an abundance of aerial shots, offering a more expansive view of the giant cranes, building scaffolding, and many construction projects of a city still in development, with quiet moments and intimate conversations leading to more contemplative ruminations.                         

At the outset we are introduced to Marianne, a urologist in her 40’s (Andrea Bræin Hovig, written with her in mind), and Tor, a caring hospital nurse who’s considerably younger (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), both working on the oncology ward, often faced with delivering the bad news about prostate cancer, including the difficulties explaining the treatment options available, with all the accompanying risks, like impotence, while Marianne conveys the inevitable, that “the organs of the lower abdomen have the peculiar ability to make us feel shame through their secretions – whether they work or not.”  So right from the outset, a predominate theme is facing our mortality, which it explores with a quiet tenderness, bringing into focus rather unconventional approaches to romance, with an exploration of desire and emotional fulfillment, offering an alternative to the nuclear family.  Mostly broken down into scenes with just two people talking, revealing their differing expectations and romantic experiences, avoiding any signs of melodramatic overreach, Marianne’s close friend Heidi sets her up with a divorced geologist named Ole (Thomas Gullestad), finding him handsome and charming enough, with a passionate love of rocks, and children, but she’s distinctively put-off by the idea of being in a complicated relationship with him, especially when he has two ex-wives, one living right next door, Solveig (Marian Saastad Ottesen), making it convenient to mutually raise their two children.  On the ferry back to Oslo after a date with Ole, Marianne bumps into Tor, who is renting a cabin for the summer in Nesodden, learning that he is gay, sharing his experience of spontaneous intimacy, as he doesn’t link sex to love, informing her that he usually cruises the ferry to find other men on apps to have sex with, like Grindr, once the exclusive domain of the gay community, but now dating apps like Tinder have opened up to everyone.  Having no real interest in static relationships, their interaction inspires Marianne to begin exploring the idea of having a more casual, laissez-faire approach to love and sexual relationships instead of playing the dating game, suggesting she needs to be more adventurous and sexually fluid in her encounters with men, wondering if Tor's living-in-the-moment philosophies could work in her own life, which leads to a random sexual encounter with a married carpenter (Morten Svartveit).  As in Oslo Trilogy: Sex, an interrogation of queerness expands the boundaries and opens up new doors of heterosexuality, at least partially inspired by Olivia Laing’s book The Lonely City, where a straight woman becomes intrigued by the gay cruising culture of New York City.  In a better world, we would be more honest with each other, more transparent, and make more emotionally informed decisions without fear of being judged or morally condemned, though we have yet to reach a point where women can make choices regarding their sexuality and love life without having to defend or explain themselves.  Tor ends up finding himself attracted to ferry passenger Bjørn (Lars Jacob Holm), a reserved gay psychologist who crosses paths with Tor again in the city, as he becomes a hospital patient recovering from prostate surgery.  Checking in on him at the hospital, Tor demonstrates the kindness of his profession, becoming a model of care and compassion, yet his attraction and personal touch blur together in defiance of professional principles, with Marianne reminding him of the patient’s vulnerability post-surgery, so he needs to be careful not to cross the line, while he, in turn, reminds her that you can’t actually assume people understand what you’re saying in the heightened confusion of receiving a cancer diagnosis.  One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, yet what’s rarely spoken about is how the outcome disproportionately affects the sex lives of gay men, as Tor educates her on how the removal of the prostate is actually more detrimental to gays, as it’s such a major aspect of their sexual pleasure since it is directly stimulated during anal sex. 

With a constantly changing focus, and a camera that is always in motion, the Trilogy follows characters as attentively and unobtrusively through the changing and newly-built neighborhoods of Oslo, where each segment seems to focus on a different part of the city, with each visiting the city center.  The real celebration, however, is the human connection, with the ongoing interactions represented by the ferry constantly going back and forth.  Some of the most hauntingly beautiful scenes take place in Nesodden, which despite its close proximity to Oslo feels isolated and remote, like the association we have with Bergman’s Fårö Islands, with cabins having giant windows overlooking the water, which are especially mesmerizing at night, evoking a distinct tranquility and calmness that was simply missing in the first segment of the Oslo Trilogy: Sex.  While not shot in ‘Scope, like the first segment, what’s remarkable about the film is how it explores relationships from an unconventional perspective, where the “anything goes” philosophy is reminiscent of Paul Mazursky’s comedic relationship study BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE (1969), which was advertised at the time as “Consider the Possibilities,” so it’s hardly new, yet seen through a queer lens, with Tor and Bjørn developing a tender bond the more they get to know each other, one that involves extreme intimacy, but no sex, a dynamic that’s often not in consideration within an often sex-obsessed gay culture.  Instead the film explores Bjørn’s traumatic and emotionally riddled past in a lengthy monologue sequence, “Sex is never just sex,” coming out during the 80’s when gays were being ravaged by an AIDS epidemic, feeling like he was being punished for being gay, part of a generation of gay men who have a more markedly cautious idea of casual sex, coming full circle as now his life is threatened once again by cancer.  Tor is literally a spiritual healer, a transitional bridge for Bjørn during a particularly difficult time recovering from surgery, knowing full well that his life will probably never be the same afterwards, but Tor is always extremely positive and life affirming, revealing how love can take on different shapes.  Marianne’s pursuit of more flexible boundaries from casual relationships without complications and obligations instead of the stress of fully formed committments leaves her traditionally-minded friend Heidi mortified, unable to recognize her friend anymore, which is hard to fathom, considering that early walk through Oslo’s city hall architecture, with a sexually diverse interpretation, was largely for Marianne’s benefit, finding clues that are largely missed through conventional viewing.  Fascinating and at times inspiring, what stands out is the assuredness of the characters, who are continually honest with themselves as they talk about relationships and how we can improve them, reflected in the director’s non-judgmental gaze, quietly subdued, yet hopefully evocative of a better understanding of ourselves, as opposed to the incendiary emotional fireworks of Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973), with characters mercilessly raging over a decade’s worth of marital turmoil.  In what was likely envisioned as the concluding episode of the Trilogy, the film ends on an uplifting rooftop musical interlude with a deeply expressive song, Once Upon YouTube (2:02), by Peder Capjon Kjellsby sung by Norwegian jazz vocalist Solveig Slettahjell that morphs immediately into the more spontaneous jazz riff of Grunnstoff (Live) YouTube (2:02), offering a festive final note in its commemoration of Oslo.  Arguing for freedom and individuality in how people might pursue romance, as love can manifest in many different and unexpected ways, Haugerud is striving for a sexual and emotional closeness with others without necessarily conforming to the societal norms and conventions that currently define relationships, instead emphasizing ambiguity, becoming an example of how queer cinema has really evolved over the last decade, exploring how individuality can create different forms of interpersonal relationships, approaching the subject with tenderness, warmth, and sophistication.