If it is eye candy you are after, Praia do futuro is an entirely serviceable evocation of Berlin's scruffy beauty and of the more tempestuous side of Brazil. It is beautifully shot in beautiful locations and with beautiful performers. If you are after more be prepared to do a lot of the heavy lifting yourself because this cinematic triptych isn't nearly as cohesive as it needs to be to succeed, narratively or thematically.
Praia do futuro lacks the ferocity of Aïnouz's first feature Madame Satã but carries most of its faults. There's a listlessness to its storytelling, which out and out refuses to give the audience too many traditional narrative cues. Aïnouz and his co-writer, Felipe Bragança, elide huge tracts of the men's between the three selectively framed portions leaving gulfs their patchy, often confusing characterisation cannot span. Are the men together? What is the source of their issues? Are they even having issues? Within the confines of Aïnouz's film it is almost impossible to tell.
Credit where credit's due, it is a brave decision to repeatedly throw your audience out to sea. The effect works well to capture the emptiness of cultural dislocation. That is a huge part of what the film makers are aiming for, so more's the pity that it falters on almost every other front. The performances cannot even offer a life line; they are decent but fail to give Donato and the rest of the cast the inner lives they need to stay afloat amongst the broody, self-pitying angst. In the end, it is Aïnouz's film that ends up drowning.
Moody but frustrating.
★★☆
Trailer:
Praia do futuro screened at Sydney Film Festival 2014.
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