Murilo Salles debut as a feature film director is a powerful coming of age story set against the backdrop of the military regime in Brazil.
It revolves on the reconnection of a father (Cláudio Marzo) with his teenage son (Roberto Bataglin) after years apart from each other as the older man was
involved in revolutionary acts against the military and he had to disappear for a while, leaving the lonely boy interned at a Catholic school, as the
mother had passed away.
Gabriel only knows the world through the religious teachings, barely remembers the father and when he returns to pick him up to live
together he's painfully curious in knowing about everything about the man. Beto, the father, keeps the 18-year-old in the dark, answering as little
as possible except that he's working on something important and the less Gabriel knows about it the better, and he'll stay safe while living in a nearly empty
apartment provided by a friend of his, the shop owner Leonor (Susana Vieira). Out of boredom, loneliness (as his father is mostly absent for long days)
mixed with a heightened sense of curiousity, Gabriel investigates his father, his business, the friend and also discovers life outside of school
discipline, through night outs on clubs and dates with a prostitute who's close to his father's activities.
There's never enough time for a closer bonding between both men, and feelings are best felt and expressed in the times they're apart from one
another, or when they're close but with one of the parts noticing the other. The latter example comes in a beautiful moment when Gabriel was asleep
in front of TV, still on playing "East of Eden" final scene and the melancholic film score takes over everything, and Beto is nearby just watching
his son sleeping, with a look of care, love but also preocupation. Not a word is spoken. The character is quite stern through his interactions with
the son, hardly ever answers what he's asked, but in that moment we can sense that he deeply cares about the young man, worrying about what will
happen to him if he's gone, as the kid doesn't know anything about life and the father can't share the real nature of his actions that can put everybody's
lives in danger. It's a great proof on why Marzo was one of the greatest Brazilian actors to grace the screen, he simply understood the moment and
no dialogue or spoken thought was needed.
Bataglin has a great presence as the son. His air of innocence is very convincing as someone who is built like a young man but carries
a part of childhood within, questioning the world around him, slowly learning about this new environment full of possibilities. Sometimes clueless, sometimes
smart, and very believable if we have to compare with the original short story written by João Gilberto Noll, where the character becomes a street-smart type
surrounded by a group of friends and even becomes a male hustler to score some money when he had none left.
Speaking of the short, the film is an amazing free-spirited expansion of what Noll wrote, without betraying its source. It removes the
thoughts of the son (plenty of humor there) and allows us to see the reconnection journey of two family members who were stranger to each other and now they try to navigate
into the possibilities of a new future together. But the dictatorship is there, little was changed and there's still situations to overcome. For those who wonder
about the film title is related with a 1970's propaganda slogan used to mask that turbulent period, pretty much like what Beto does to Gabriel in hiding the reality from him.
I simply couldn't shake this movie off my mind, everything works marvelously: acting, direction, script, soundtrack, the atmosphere, the thrills, the drama and the
bittersweet moments. Despite the fictional elements aligned with a real background, there's plenty of reality there, you can trust that a story
like that actually happened, not just in Brazil but elsewhere when there was some social/political turmoil as it touches on the universal themes of
shattered families, hidden secrets that come to surface, and the difficulties of reconnecting with a loved one as they led separate lives for too long. 10/10.
