Aya Arcos

This is a nice movie, offers surprisingly good acting and builds multi layer story very successfully despite some setbacks with its minimal budget. Director Maximilian Moll does a wonderful job to develop a story on prejudice, love, companion, sacrifice, and impact on social values on lifestyle choices. I think, presenting this movie as story of a street hustler and his long-time customer does injustice to the multi-layered scenario. My five star goes to Daniel Passi particularly, who delivers tour de force performance reflecting complexities of a hustler who struggles between his personal emotions and real-life facts. A small gem from Brazil cinema.

An older, overweight writer meets a street rentboy and they fall in love. That much we know from the plot outline. But there's more to it than that. There are issues of freedom, jealousy, friends, safer sex and the future.

I've lived this scenario and the dialogue as shown in the subtitles reflects reality. So do the interactions, frustrations, quarrels and problems with friends. As a portrait of an older, insecure man, this was a tour de force - it's the young guy who is making the running and supporting his client/lover.

I also liked the appearance of Edu's fag hag friend who didn't dispense wisdom but had a sympathetic ear.

Can this relationship survive its pressures? It's certainly possible as I can testify, although relationships change and evolve. I'm not going to make this a "spoiler" review, so what I can say is that this is a worthy 80 minutes to spend on a film to find out.

"Aya Arcos" did not remind me of any other film that I had seen before, but it did remind me of myself as a young homosexual man in the 1970s, carefree and vibrant, and joining theater groups, mini-orgies, and (absent in the movie) political movements; and it reflects me in old age, as a still passionate theater writer and director, although a bit wiser than Edu when it comes to my love life at 74. I feel writer-director Maximilian von Moll is quite fair portraying the young and the old, while reminding me of another times, when I saw so many dear friends die of AIDS, and I even knew of the case of a wrong diagnosis that had tragic consequences.

From this side of the experience of watching the movie, I found it appealing and moving. I also liked its color palette, some compositions, a few remarkable shots (as the Ipanema beach during sunset, with the sun hidden behind big clouds), and I found Daniel Massi's performance as Fábio, a tender, endearing, and honest construction of a young man finding his place in life, society and Earth. But I must admit that "Aya Arcos" is quite sloppy, especially in its editing. It is true that Moll's camera work is sometimes clumsy and erratic, but it seems to me there was enough material to cut those raw edges and the lack of raccord between two shots in some instances, and give a more refined finish to a film that merited a little more care, with a few remarkable quiet scenes where silence is an effective source of inner expression (as in the two different scenes when both Edu and Fábio discuss their laboratory results). Some parts are not good at all (as the ayahuasca scene) and others are not bad but you can do without (as Edu's meetings with his girl friend).

I do not think that this movie is for the "An Early Frost" & "Philadelphia" crowd (mostly integrated by middleclass persons), I believe it appeals more to "the people". I can appreciate both groups, I like industrial and independent cinema, good and bad movies with redeeming values. But I cannot stand the "discreet charm" of bourgeois euphemism. I prefer crude directness. So, for me it was not as bad as some say. I truly thank Moll for making "Aya Arcos", and I enjoyed it.

The film has an interesting story, but the script is too simple, does not go deep into some issues, leaving some holes. In addition, the film is too amateurish, especially on technical issues. For example, the sound is almost inaudible in various dialogues of the characters, as the sound of the surrounding environment is captured rather than the speech of the characters. The actors also leave something to be desired, their interpretations are too artificial and mechanical, lacking spontaneity. Anyway, it is worth watching Aya Arcos and drawing your own conclusions.