Visually-arresting take on life and death in northern Brazil
Dandara de Morais and Geova Manoel dos Santos in a scene from Gabriel Mascaro’s Emigrante.
POINTS: 7
Ventos de agosto (August Winds) is the pro-mising fiction film debut of Brazilian visual artist and documentary filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro, a contemplative meditation on nature, existence, daylight and twilight on northeastern Brazil. It’s a laconic, leisurely-paced yet somehow intense take on the shades that make up everyday existence in an isolated environment. Often visually arresting, poetic and atmospheric, Ventos de agosto does sometimes fail to pay off in narrative terms as style takes over substance and you could say nothing much happens — but nonetheless it always remains a sensorial pleasure.
Shirley (Dandara de Morais) is a good-looking young woman from the big city who has arrived to town to care for her aging grandmother. Shirley’s mother has sent her there for this very purpose, so you can imagine the girl is less than thrilled to be so far away, keeping busy with a rather unexciting task. But she’s managed to find a job at a coconut plantation, where she meets Jeison (Geova Manoel dos Santos), a muscular young worker who dives for seafood in his spare time.
Jeison lives with his father (Antonio Jose dos Santos), a strict man who won’t let him out of his sight at almost any time. However, Jeison and Shirley manage to find a place of their own to engage in hot sex: Shirley’s coconut-filled trailer. The two lovers exude life in its entire splendour, which contrasts with the overwhelming presence of abandonment and death surrounding them. Their young, firm bodies are a living testimony of the exuberance of youth, even when there’s a pervading ambiance of melancholy all around them.
With strikingly alluring photography — yet don’t imagine cheesy postcard images at all — that conveys many layers of both beauty and darkness, Mascaro allows the film to breathe freely at all times, as the sound of omnipresent strong winds emphasizes the arid wilderness of the land. Some 40 minutes into the film, Mascaro shows up to play a meteorologist who comes for some measurements and recordings. De Morais is the only professional actress, and yet you wouldn’t be able to tell that all the other characters are played by locals, considering how convincing they all look and sound.
Due to its visual design and ambiance, Ventos de agosto demands to be watched at a movie theatre and not at home on a smaller screen. And while every now and then you may feel that description takes over narration — and so you are being fed more of the same — bear in mind it certainly won’t prevent you from the pleasure of this textured, moody and languid feature.
Production notes
Ventos de agosto (Brazil, 2014). Directed by Gabriel Mascaro. Written by Gabriel Mascaro, Rachel Ellis. With Dandara de Morais, Geova Manoel dos Santos, Maria Salvino dos Santos, Antonio Jose dos Santos, Gabriel Mascaro. Cinematography: Gabriel Mascaro. Editing: Ricardo Pretti, Eduardo Serrano. Running time: 75 minutes.
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