When looks could be deceiving. About HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO
Celía Rodriguez Tejuca of the 2014 Guadalajara Talent Press reviews Daniel Ribeiro's HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO.
Daniel Ribeiro's HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO
Zenith overhead shot. Two bodies lie on the edge of the pool, bodies forming a cross that give us their back. Sweet vacation break, rest and dilated time. Still water. The quiet. All its in apparent equilibrium, with its superb harmony of immovable aspect. He is blind, she is his best friend. The imminent end of the holidays is approaching and their only worry is breaking that state of calm.
That is the beginning of HOJE EU QUERO VOLTAR SOZINHO (From blind loves, hidden, simplified. 2014) film presented at the 29th Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara FICG29 by Brazilian director Daniel Ribeiro. Apparently a door to a promising teenage universe has been open for us, unfortunately, is just a window, a short crack through which we catch only mere sketches. The director confronts us with Leonardo, a teenager in the process of building his character, his personality; struggling to define himself in a world designed for people without physical disabilities, a place where they welcome only "normal" people, bottling himself in a daily double struggle.
Leonardo dreams a far reality, where social tension at the school community disappears. Where his parents lose the tight control over all of his daily activities. We see in this compulsive pattern a way to find an outlet that allows his realization as an individual which is channeled into the story in his willingness to study abroad. In this sense, one of the most illuminating scenes and that gives the guideline on the narrative evolution of the film is the one in which Leonardo talks to his father and suggests that he solve his internal issues first because only then he could find a useful solution to his difficulties as an individual.
In this way he begins a journey of internal redefinitions, which will lead to the discovery of his sexual identity, an identity that overall is homosexual. This solution might seem to some a bit sudden and little justified. Clearly as an individual that pretends certain independence, he opens his expectations to new experiences that neutralize his disability. It is Gabriel, the new kid in class who comes to bare this possibilities of crossing borders, to an extent that had never reached Giovanna, Leonardo’s childhood friend. To some extent, Gabriel completes its deficiencies, without subjecting them to the judgment of the failure. He is who leads him to experience visual sensation compromised by the used word. Unfortunately, it falls into clichés areas, beyond sweetening the film; contribute by little to the development of their characters. Add to this, and this is perhaps the point at which the film´s narrative gets broken, where the character transitions are very light causing an estrangement in the reception of the story represented. We doubt the arch of the characters evolution which prompts us to ask ourselves: how did they get to that place of communion of interests and passions, what moved them? And in any case, why invoke the romantic notion of salvation through love?
Another element that should not be overlooked is the mode of representation of the universe of this blind individual, this leads to a required design soundtrack analysis because Leonardo´s communication with the world develops merely through his greater or lesser ability to perceive sounds and load them emotionally. Each character will be located with a melody in its sound map. Emotionally, his friends, his parents, his grandmother, all are sounds that make up a world composed of melodic and rhythmic vibrations. It is then more incoherent the excessive use made of music, often without a definite function. It often disconnects from the story not dramatically accompanying the pictures, but standing just as filling in a nice background, but very little substance. These weaknesses in terms of the sound structure of the film to a certain extent cause a lack of subtlety that breaks the sense of the scope unit represented.
The film, besides is appearing in La sección oficial de Largometrajes Iberoamericanos de Ficción ( The Ibero-American Fiction Selection Feature films) and also has been add to the list of titles vying for El Premio maguey (The maguey Award competition), where the focused theme is queer cinema. But do we have a film that proudly displays this sensitive research on gay sexuality without trying to say that what is presented is correct? Truly an ethic of sexuality that it is openly defended has been represented. This game inevitably ensnares the director because he losses sincerity in the creation process of this intimate universe and also undermines the humanity of his gaze. Leonardo breaks out and ends up facing his social phobias with just a gesture. A slight movement of his hand in the encounter with Gabriel reaffirms its newfound identity.
This gesture, which touches many and made it into a show from minimum sources at the end of the movie, confirms the above. By giving an important weight to this dramatic scene in the story, it has proposed a kind of thesis or conclusive truth, that breaks the premise by naturalized the looks in this context. The story is bathed in didacticism, a strange opening to a homosexual view as a possibility; however, it is still understood as a particular choice. At the conclusion of the film, we are left with many empty areas, holes that even though we aren´t driven to complete, as much as it has cost us to understand the stories of these characters as believable as subjects that could coexist in our everyday spaces. With this story we learn that, in narrative and discursive matter, the approach of the social "other" implies an obligation to understand it as a inclusive "we " , otherwise, we can be deceive and, even worse, we could spread that misleading idea to the public that at times forgets that old said " looks can be deceiving ".
