One of many many peculiarities of latest U.S. cultural tendencies is the “over-55 neighborhood,” gated havens for well-off retirees who embrace the thought of mono-generational dwelling as an all-comforts interlude earlier than Thanatos comes knocking. In Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Path, a mild mix of delayed self-realization fantasy and dystopian portent, the cut-off age is 77, which in a manner is progress (consider Logan’s Run) and the transfer is involuntary, however resistance just isn’t futile. Mascaro’s fourth function might be thought-about a pair along with his earlier Divine Love, which additionally imagined a near-future managed by a repressive state disguised as a caring Large Brother, however his newest is much less deliciously elliptical than earlier movies, privileging sensorial rewards that come from the pure world slightly than the human physique. Set aglow by the earthy power of Denise Weinberg as Tereza, a girl decided to not be put away, The Blue Path posits a river journey as a path to freedom, and its unpreachy heat, regardless of occasional lags in momentum, gives refreshing rewards.
That is Mascaro’s most humane movie thus far, which isn’t to say that August Winds and Neon Bull weren’t additionally grounded within the particular person’s battle for self-fulfillment outdoors the strictures of bourgeois circumscribed society. However in The Blue Path the director will get deeper inside character, particularly the glow that comes from detaching oneself from presumed usefulness and dwelling within the second. To that finish, the exceptional Miriam Socarrás arrives simply in time to make Tereza – and the viewers – perceive the enjoyment of independence.
“The long run is for everybody” publicizes ubiquitous authorities broadcasts in a watery neighborhood in Brazil’s Amazonas State, the place Tereza works in an alligator meat processing plant. As with all slogans nevertheless, a elementary lie is constructed into the premise: the longer term is for everybody supplied “everybody” is actively contributing to the nation’s prosperity. As soon as they hit 77, their kids are robotically awarded authorized guardianship they usually’re shipped off to a “Colony,” with the peace of mind of a cheerful, care-free life with out the specter of loneliness. Anybody resisting is picked up by the “wrinkle wagon,” a form of open-caged transport car that makes a humiliating spectacle of the captured aged. Now that Tereza has reached the cut-off age, she’s forcibly retired and instructed she’s acquired only a few days earlier than she wants to maneuver to the Colony.
However she’s not prepared, not by a protracted shot. For one, she’s by no means been in a aircraft earlier than, but nobody ever requested what goals she might have. The journey agent gained’t promote her a ticket with out the authorization of her daughter Joana (Clarissa Pinheiro), so she seeks out non-commercial flight prospects, which leads her to a ship, a smuggler named Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro) and the potential of going up in an ultralight flying machine. As with all highway/river journeys nevertheless, transformation comes from the journey, not the vacation spot. A mysterious blue secretion from a uncommon snail is the gateway drug to revelations as Cadu, beneath the affect, discloses a significant remorse that haunts his life and denies him happiness, underlining the concept life, it doesn’t matter what age, must be grabbed with out regrets.
When her hopes for flying are dashed, Tereza returns residence solely to be rounded up for forcible relocation, but a intelligent ruse permits her to flee and he or she winds up asking atheist digital Bible vendor Roberta (Socarrás) for sanctuary on her boat. It’s a gathering of like-minded souls: Roberta was capable of purchase her manner out of being shipped off to the Colony — cash will at all times speak — and her enjoyment of freedom reveals the trail Tereza should take.
Whereas at all times delicate to the compositional pleasures afforded by nature, Mascaro is particularly taken with the meandering pathways of the Amazon and its tributaries, whose seemingly illogical snaking shapes act as geographic metaphors for the movie’s message that life just isn’t concerning the easiest, straightest option to get from level A to level Z. The Blue Path asserts that productiveness is the antithesis of human achievement, providing an alternate of kinds to the empty guarantees of capitalism and Soviet-style communism with its insistence that our well-being isn’t tied up with notions of usefulness. In the very best scene, Tereza and Roberta wash themselves utilizing buckets of glistening water, their our bodies responding to the bodily pleasure, enhanced by daylight and the sense of communion between two ladies who select to drift into the longer term on their very own steam.
Title: The Blue Path (O último azul)
Pageant: Berlin (Competitors)
Director–screenwriters: Gabriel Mascaro, Tibério Azul
Solid: Denise Weinberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Miriam Socarrás, Adanilo, Clarissa Pinheiro
Gross sales agent: Fortunate Quantity
Operating time: 1 hr 26 minutes
