VERDICT: Pedro Neves Marques follows 2019’s The Bite with another sci-fi-infused relationship story in this thought-provoking meditation on traditional gender roles and the nuclear family.
‘It sounds artificial.’ This phrase is repeated at the beginning and end of Pedro Neves Marques new film Becoming Male in the Middle Ages with slightly different intonations. These two readings of the same line provide an interesting starting point from which to navigate the topics being scrutinised and transmuted by this languid, science-fiction-infused relationship drama which shares various strands of DNA with the filmmakers’ previous short film, The Bite.
The first use of the line is by André (Zé Bernardino) who is prodding a chunk of lab-grown meat given to him by his friend Carl. As a vegan, he’s contemplating whether he should try it and the ethical and biological implications of beef that’s produced without cows. André is in a heterosexual relationship with Mirene (Isabel Costa), and they are struggling to conceive due to, what transpires to be, a problem with André’s sperm. Carl (Nuno Nolasco) is in a homosexual relationship with Vicente (Neves Marques himself) and they are also attempting to conceive via a process in which ovaries are implanted into Vicente’s body before the resulting eggs are removed to a surrogate mother.
Through the interactions of these two couples, the film explores the values assigned to the traditional roles in normative relationships, the physical and emotional pressures of parenthood, and the pervasiveness of standardised modes of thought. In the figure of André, who we last see in the foetal position in bed after trying the aforementioned meat, there is an inherent resistance to divergent family models and the emasculating impact of infertility. In the other three characters, a certain fluidity begins to emerge – perhaps inspired by Marge Piercy’s utopian feminist sci-fi Woman on the Edge of Time, which Mirene is seen reading. When Carl repeats the line about artificiality, it is an ironic dig at the imposed strictures of the nuclear family which, the film arguably suggests, are growing increasingly outdated.
Director, screenplay: Pedro Neves Marques
Cast: Isabel Costa, Zé Bernardino, Nuno Nolasco, Pedro Neves Marques
Producer: Catarina de Sousa
Cinematography: Marta Simões
Editing: Margarida Lucas
Music: HAUT
Production companies: Foi Bonita a Festa (Portugal)
Venue: Rotterdam International Film Festival (Ammodo Tiger Shorts Competition)
In Portuguese
22 minutes
