QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM BERLIN

The action takes place in a riverside town of the Brazilian Amazon, during a time not distant from the present day. The settings, the clothes and the prices suggest perhaps five to 10 years from now. A strangely authoritarian and yet terrifyingly palpable future is a common theme in Gabriel Mascaro’s cinematography. His previous film Divine Love (2019) takes place at the end of the current decade, and portrays a Brazil ruled by evangelicals, with pregnancy scanners implemented at the entrance of shops and government buildings, and other creepy religious rituals becoming institutionalised.

In The Blue Trail, a mandatory “colony” has been set up for elderly people. This means that they no longer present a burden to their working children, thus maximising productivity and allowing neoliberalism to operate in its full magnificence. The idea that the elderly should be disposed is not a new one in film. Keisuke Kinoshita.proposed that children should carry their ageing parents to a mountain in order to die, in 1958’s The Ballad of Narayama (Shōhei Imamura remade the film in 1983). Twelve years ago, a Japanese minister encouraged the elderly to hurry up and die. Brazil too has a large ageing population (with over 65s now representing 12% of people in the country).

Seventy-seven-year old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) is not looking forward to being forcibly removed from her house into the controversial facilities in three years time (once she reaches the 80-year threshold). And she is devastated to find out that the bar has been lowered to the age of 75, meaning that she be taken away immediately. The government awards her a medal and tacky plastic laurels (which they hung against Tereza’s will around the door) in order to give the very unethical proceedings a more dignified veneer. To her disappointment, her only daughter is more than keen to see the back of her mother, and the neighbours too encourage her to play by the rules. “I look forward to seeing you there in a few years”, says a friend. “I don’t know whether I’ll make it”, retorts a far more sceptical Tereza. Our protagonist is determined to live the rest of her life as she wants.

That is a very dangerous decision. The offending elderly are reported and taken away on the “wrinkle wagon“, a small vehicle with a human cage in the back. The naughty grandmas and grandpas are humiliatingly paraded through town on the back of the vehicle, in a sordid reminder of what happens if you refuse to obey the new regulations.

Tereza embarks on a mission to fly, an event still solidly on her bucket list. The problem is that nobody will sell her a ticket without her guardian’s permission. And that’s her conveniently law-abiding daughter. Maybe she could bribe a pilot into flying her on a superlight plane? There’s yet another problem: the aircraft is old and the parts obsolete. She eventually finds another solution, meeting peculiar characters on her journey to freedom. Those she’s willing to pay are the only ones prepared to help her. This includes a young boat pilot (Brazilian heartthrob and Hollywood star Rodrigo Santoro). The man introduces Tereza to a very rare snail, which produces a blue slime. He proceeds to drop the goo into his eyes, which turn into the colour of the sky, thereby triggering a hallucinogenic trip into the future.

Tereza gets rid of her ID card because it enables authorities to track her down. She eventually finds safety and comfort on the boat of an elderly Spanish-speaking woman with a very dark secret. The charming character is strangely exempt from the government rules, and she might be able to help Tereza to dodge the bullet.

The topics of authoritarianism and surveillance are conspicuous. Tereza runs away from a society that wishes to dispose of her. And – except for Tereza – nobody else is prepared to rebel. There is a very thin line between compliance and complicity with the law, which most people are prepared to cross in exchange for retaining their privileges. The Blue Trail isn’t just a criticism of the fascism that Bolsonaro unleashed upon Brazil. It’s also a denunciation of those who decided to partake or abide. Quoting Simone de Beauvoir, from the Ethics of Ambiguity: “The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed”.

Mascaro’s fifth feature film also offers some insight into the landscape of Amazon riverside communities, and – to lesser extent – into the local culture. The boats and the acai dishes are indeed from the Amazon, however some narrative devices – such a the blue snail, which ends up serving as a MacGuffin – are entirely made-up. The protagonists and most of the soundtrack are not local. Weinberg has a notable Rio accent, and the closing song Rosa dos Ventos is chanted by Northeastern singer Maria Bethania. The Blue Trail does not propose a realistic ride into the depths of the Amazon, but instead a peculiar journey into pan-Brazilian fears and obsessions..

The Blue Trail just premiered in the Official Competition of the 75th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival.