Wildfire, the latest film by Portuguese director Joao Pedro Rodriguez, which was presented at the recent Cannes Film Festival Directors Week, will hit the screens on Wednesday. An amazing tale that plays on the hero’s temporality and memories and elevates desire.
In Portugal, an uncrowned king descended from an anachronistic monarchy confides on his deathbed the distant memories of youth. A time when he dreamed of becoming a firefighter…
Presented at Quinzaine des Realisateurs Cannes Film Festival 2022, “Feu Follet” is a twisted, maddening, dreamlike thriller that jams and captivates with its anachronistic formal audacity (we move on from 2022 to 2069) and its wildly liberating liberties. His candid fantasy, like his unbridled eroticism, uses gay symbols to the point of fantastical caricature. An unusual show that blends moral comedy, family satire and musical comedy.
The scorching heat in Portugal is not only in the dry countryside and mountains. The barracks themselves are no exception. Having just landed in a unit populated by testosterone males as in an issue of “Têtu Magazine”, shy Alfredo will gradually get caught up in a subversive game of seduction.
Slightly as if Almodovar and François Ozon had set a date under the lyrical and generous camera of Jacques Demy, the Portuguese filmmaker immerses us in a personal, unique and ever sobering world (rare fact: the film is only 68 minutes long), where the main actors such as the colossal supporting roles managed to Perpetuating likable, funny and human characters. The dialogues merge, and the actor in them is always bloody. The unexpected choreography gives a boost and reinforces the terrifying intent of the director who, without avoiding a more serious subject (how does he escape his social, intimate, professional and sexual destiny?) genuinely pleases me, tender and communicative in depicting liberties like graffiti.
Wisp, by Joao Pedro Rodrigue. in theatres.
