The
politics of Easy Rider and Electric Glide in Blue are radically
different, but the endings are oddly similar. Two wheels are generally a hard
mode of transportation in the movies, but what Hugo faces with his brother’s dirt
bike running mates is something else entirely. The machete-wielding rival
bikers are real enough, but there is something ominously uncanny going on just
outside our range of perception in Vincente Amorim’s incredibly strange Motorrad, which screens
during the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
It’s
not exactly Mad Max out there yet,
but in Hugo’s provincial corner of Brazil, a carburetor is worth risking your
life for. Rather awkwardly, the nebbish mechanic is busted red-handed trying to
lift one from the body shop run by Paula’s grandfather (or whoever). Much to
his surprise, she lets him go, with the part, after tending to a burn on his
palm. As a result, Hugo is able to invite himself along when his brother
Ricardo lights off on a road trip with some friends and dodgy acquaintances.
Things get even better when they stumble across the very same Paula broken-down
on a remote mountain trail. She will take them even further off the beaten
path, which makes them sitting ducks when a black-clad gang of psychotic bikers
starts picking them off, one by one.
Motorrad sounds like a
simplistically conventional exploitation movie, but there is a lot more going
on than initially meets the eye. Plus, the vibe is indescribably out-there.
Clearly, Amorim is processing disparate influences, such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, perhaps
Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, and
most of Jodorowsky’s filmography. The tone is weirdly unsettling, even though
his sprawling visuals are frequently quite beautiful. Frankly, this film is light-years
removed from Amorim’s moral dramas, such as Good
and Dirty Hearts.
Therefore,
it looks primed for cult-status, provided enough people see it at Toronto to
build word-of-mouth momentum. Of course, it is guaranteed to be divisive,
because of the curve-balls that come out of left field, but cineastes should
still give all the credit in the world to the craftsmanship of Amorim,
cinematographer Gustavo Hadba, and editor Lucas Gonzaga. This is an
extraordinary looking field, but it is also pretty intense on a grungy genre
level.
As
Hugo, Guilherme Prates is a credibly gawky everyman and Brazilian TV regular
Carla Salle is ambiguously seductive as the mysterious Paula, but this is not
the sort of film that will launch actors to superstardom. This is Amorim’s show—and
he constantly lets the bikes and harsh landscape upstage his competent
ensemble.
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