Neon Bull
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Sundance Interview: Gabriel Mascaro on His Near-Future Drama Divine Love, the Seductive Tactics of Religion, and Body Politics
Eroticism in service of faith is the thematic dogma fueling Gabriel Mascaro’s new intellectual affair Divine Love, a near-future drama with measured science fiction elements.Trading the carnal sensuality of 2015’s Neon Bull for extreme religious devotion, the Brazilian auteur continues to captivate with visually seductive frames laced with eye-catching colors and ethereal lighting. Futuristically restrained, the director’s vision of Brazil in 2027, just a few years from our current battlefield of a world, is selective in its use of technology, focusing on inventions or machines that directly speak to the protagonist agenda: doors with pregnancy detectors in public spaces and […]
by Carlos Aguilar on Feb 2, 2019 -
Spotlight: Gabriel Mascaro’s Neon Bull
“Sand that tail!” Iremar (rising star Juliano Cazare), a musky, melancholy young vaquero, or bull handler, is shouting at Ze (Carlos Pessoa), his flabby, more light-spirited compadre on the service crew at a vaquejada, a specialized rodeo popular in relatively impoverished northeastern Brazil. The crowd, comprised of local rural peasants whose taste and practice have evolved little beyond the age-old ways, gets all worked up watching two horsemen attempt to bring down by the tail an ornery animal bucking in a state only a little more frenzied than the one fans have entered. The game may be simple, but to […]
by Howard Feinstein on Apr 7, 2016 -
Halftime Disappointment at the Venice Film Festival
In its first half, the Competition of the 72nd Venice Film Festival has been a let-down, failing to present a single truly great title. The Orizzonti and Out of Competition selections have generally proved a safer bet, and of course the excellent Venice Classics program, which so far included screenings of restored masterpieces by the likes of Fellini, Melville and Hou Hsiao-hsien, has been a reliable and most welcome morale boost whenever necessary. Following Birdman and Gravity in the last two years, the festival extended its string of star-studded, big-spectacle openers with Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest, a fictionalization of an infamous 1996 commercial […]
by Giovanni Marchini Camia on Sep 8, 2015
