In an early scene in Carlos Segundo’s 15-minute short, Sideral, the character known only as Mère (Priscilla Vilela) tells her husband that she’s tired. Her performance clearly conveys that she’s trying to explain a weariness of the soul but her husband, Père (Enio Cavalcante), fails to understand and jokes about them only just having arrived. In a vein similar to the recent Brazilian feature Desterro, written and directed by Maria Clara Escobar, a wife trudges through a stifling, quotidian family life and maybe, just maybe, longs for escape. Where Desterro’s examination of this moment leads to a strange and haunting drama, Segundo’s film uses the same scenario as the jumping-off point for something a little more oddball.
The film takes place in Natal, in northern Brazil, on the day of the country’s first manned space rocket launch, and various eyes are scanning the sky on the lookout for aspirational motivation and new horizons. The couple’s two children wait eagerly at home watching the television coverage, while Père works at the local garage and Mère attends the launch in person. The action is intentionally slow to unfold, little happens except for subtle character cues – an offhanded reference to infidelity the most striking – and everyone rushes outside to watch the rocket blast into the stratosphere. However, Mère has made a somewhat unexpected decision that suggests a profound sense of entrapment, and which will have long-lasting ramifications for her family. At this point, a visit to the house from some strait-laced military men provides the film’s most poignant and dryly humorous moments.
Segundo and his fellow cinematographer, Julio Schwantz, capture the film in a pristine monochrome and by way of some artful compositions. The lack of colour serves both as a way of unmooring the drama from a specific time – the film could as easily be set today as decades ago – and more pertinently as a visual signifier of its characters’ malaise. The shades of grey seem to emphasise the mundanity of daily life even before a final image, accompanying the film’s title, bursts into intergalactic technicolour to drive the point home and perhaps offer a life-affirming alternative to the greige of the everyday.
Director, screenplay: Carlos Segundo
Cast: Priscilla Vilela, Enio Cavalcante, Fernanda Cunha, Matheus Brito
Producers: Mariana Hardi, Pedro Fiuza, Damien Megherbi, Justin Pechberty
Cinematography: Carlos Segundo, Julio Schwantz
Editing: Carlos Segundo, Jérôme Bréau
Music: Jérôme Rossi
Production company: Casa da Praia (Brazil)
Venue: Karlovy Vary (Pragueshorts at KVIFF)
In Portuguese
15 minutes
