By Roger Costa
KILL ME PLEASE
A school teen girl becomes obsessed with a corpse they found brutally killed in her Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. Bia and her friends are intrigued by the mysterious serial killer, and they will try to put together the puzzle while increasingly getting involved and putting themselves at risk. But as writer-director Anita Rocha da Silveira’s provocative coming-of-age/vampire/crime tale unfolds, a load of dark, macabre secrets are gradually displayed on screen, creating an inventive, surrealistic yet honest portrait of the young generation, their horny behavior, depression and violent inclinations. Bia is also dealing with her hormones and the different reactions toward sex of her religious-devoted boyfriend. Structured as a noir, where the girls constantly try to figure out what happened to each victim, the film also finds strength on the musical numbers, infused with Brazilian funk and pop, an important vehicle of expressing the teens’ confusing emotions, desires and perspectives. Silveira demonstrates a promising authenticity, as she observes the conflicts with contemplative and satirical lenses, also addressing faith, loneliness, and the effects of a dysfunctional family (we never see Bia’s mother, but she is a present figure throughout the dialogue). Seductively bizarre and visually striking, Silveira conceived one of this year’s most refreshingly inventive surprises. (A Cinema Slate Release. Opens Friday, September 1st at Alamo Drafthouse, Brooklyn NYC.)
JESUS
Scandalously violent, Chilean director Fernando Guzzoni’s second feature film follows the turbulent lifestyle of the young boy of the title, a bisexual, rebellious dancer participating on a pop star competition dealing with the consequences of his lack of responsibility and the complicated relationship with his mostly absent father. One night, completely wasted with his friends in a park, they severely beat another kid, in a brutal, hard-to-watch action that leaves the victim in a coma. The inexplicable crime shocks the nation, and confronted by guilty he confesses it to his father, putting their estranged relationship at a definitive moral test. As the troubled teen, Nicolás Durán gives a tremendously courageous and poignant performance, completely convincing in his dramatic tasks, the explicit sex scenes with both boy and girl, the layers of fear, disturbance and his anxious privacy. Nominated for Best Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and an acclaimed selection at Toronto, Guzzoni analyzes the drastic situation and the inescapable experiences of adolescence with neo-realistic influences, absorbing raw perfection from the controversial material. (A Breaking Glass Pictures Release. Opens Friday, September 1st at Cinema Village NYC.)
NOBODY’S WATCHING
Running away from his married lover and his uncertain career as a TV star in Buenos Aires, Nico arrives in New York City looking for a reboot. Getting by with the help of a friend, serving as a sitter to her adorable baby, he explores the city and its opportunities, struggling to get a role in a movie and launch his international career. Things are not really developing as he expected, and through his personal crisis he will experience different shapes of a cultural clash, providing lessons on how to survive in a foreign land. Extremely sensitive and complex, Julia Solomonoff’s drama is probably one of the best films of the year, an accurate and precisely humane narrative, as she masterly depicts contemporary topics (immigration, unemployment, humanitarian values crisis and so on) with an elegant universal vocabulary that proves her as a naturally accomplished filmmaker. A Brazil/Argentina/Colombia co-production, the film won the prestigious Best Actor Award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, honoring Guillermo Pfening for his outstanding and voracious portrait of a broken dreamer fighting with his own dilemmas. A powerful male character study crafted with invigorating feminine delicacy. Academy, are you taking notes? (A FiGa Films Release. Opens Friday, September 8th at Film Forum NYC.)
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