‘The Blue Trail’ Review: A Gorgeous Aquatic Road Movie That Turns The Amazon Into A Magical Escape From Exile to Freedom

Movies About Dystopian Near Futures Are A Dime A Dozen, But Is Hard to Recall One That Sweeps You Up in The DEFIANT JOY The Blue Trail (O último azul). Gabriel Mascaro’s Imaginative Fable Is A Slap in the Face of Age Discript, with Hallucinogenic Gastropods, Dueling Tropical Fish and “Wrinkle Wagons” Re hauled off while kids snap Cellphone Photos. The Subversive Spirit Gradually Awakned in the 77-Iear-Eld Central Character is echoed in the cheeky pleasures of the platting in a Film botth fantastical and grounded in Earth.

Mascaro Had His International Breakthrough in 2015 with The Intoxicating Neon BullA Ripely Sensual Contemplation of the Thin Line Separating Man and Beast, Whod Upended Conventional Notion . The Cowboy with a taste for delicate collecting and aspractions to design women’s cloting was a rejection of gender Stereotypes Via One of the Sexiest, MOST TENDER MALE SCREEN.

The Director, Who Got His Start in Documentary, Followed In 2020 With Divine lovE, a satire of the unholy intersection Between Evangelical Christianity and Far-Right Conservatism. Taking AIM at Religious Hypocrisy and Autocratic GovernmentMental Meddling in Everhtying from Marginity to Sex, The Film Conjured a Scenario Futur Itical. A JD Vance Wet Dream.

Bodies have been a thetomic motif in mascaro’s narrative features. That Continues with The Blue Trailin WHICH OWNership of the Aged Body of Tereza (Weinberg) is Invalidated by Bureaucratic Edists. But in a glorious fu to authoritarian Rule, The Director and HIS CO-Writer Tibério Azul Celebrate Telebrate Tereza’s Physical Vitality and Even Her Reseraticism of Eraticism AROTHERIGENTISM AROTICISM AROTHERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGERGENT

A Breatting Drone Shot Near the End of the Movie Shows An Alligator Shimmying Along the Surface of An Amazon Tributary. It Symbolizes Tereza’s Emancipation in An Elegant Reversal of Where She Was at the Start, Working in A Processing Plant for Alligator Meat. The Village Where She Lives Is Almost A SHANTYTOWN, SURROUNDED by Factories.

Exultant Public-Address AnnounCements and Banners Fluttering from Passing Planes Proclaim, “The Future is for Everyone.” But Happily self-Sufficient Tereza is Skeptical of Her Place in that Future. She’s less than thrilled to come and find government employees Hanging Golden Laurels Over the Door to Her Humble Shack; They Award Her A Medal That Declares Her A “National Living Heritage.” “SINCE WHEN IS Getting Old An Honor?” She mutters with a Scowl.

AT 77, Tereza Figures She Still Has Three Years Left Before Her Mandaloval Removal by the Government to the “Colony,” an isolated Settlement for Seniors. The Policy is Designed to Free Youner Generations from Resistance and Thereby Encouroge Productivity and Growth.

The fact that no one subjected to this form relocation every resurfaces raises doubts about an even more more sinister formter form of generational cleansing, Thought the Script Shrewdly MainTAINS AMBIGUITY. Glimpses of Graffiti Saying “Give Me Back My Grandma” or “The Elderly Are Not A Commodity” Point to Discord Among the People.

WHEN TEREZA IS INFORMED BY Her Boss at the Plant She’s Being Involuntarily Retire, She Also Learns That The State Has Lower ) Becomes Her Legal Guardian. Without Hammering the Point, Mascaro Notes The Bitter Irony of A Woman Who Raured Her Daughter on Her Own While Working Two Jobs Ten Being Stripped of Her Autonomy.

Tereza Has Always Dreamed of Flying in a Plane and in An Attempt at Wish-Fulfillment Before She’s Carned Off, She Tries to Buy A Ticket at The Airport to “Wherever The NEXT FLIGGHT. But All Travel is Closely Monitored, with Ultralight Aviation Banned and Government-Conntrolled Commercial Flighs the Sole Option. That becomes a moot Point whot joana Declines to Authorize Her Purchase.

Refusion to Abandon Her Dream, Tereza Slips Shady-Looking Riverboat Pilot Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro) A Chunk of Her Savings to Transport Her Down The and SHAZON ht.

Communication Between Them is Trserse at First and He Bristles at Her Questions. But WHEN A FIRWORK SIGNALLS HIM The Route Is Temporarily Closed, They Pull Into A Tributary to Wait It Out, WHICH IS WHEN MASCARO INTACESS The FIRST ELEMENT OF MACIC RELAP. Memo Guerra’s Electronic Score Also Takes On More Soothing Tones, Echoing The Gentle Rhythms of the River.

WHILE FLOOTING ON AN INFLATABLE RAFT, CADU Finds An Elusion “Blue Drool Snail,” A Specialies That Secretes a Cerulean Slime Which, When Use Used As Eyeds, Is Said To. HE WASTES NO TIME TRYING IT.

Tereza is initially concerned as the boatman Starts Burning up to with Fever. HALF-DELIRUSS, HE BABBLES About Going to Find His Lost Love, The Woman He Let Slip Away in Favor of His Boat. WHEN The All-Clear Signal ComES, Telling Them Safe to Proceed, Cadu Is In No Shape To Steer The Vessel, So He Gives Tereza A Crash Course. In a key piece of info, he Tells her if she can drive one boat, she can drive them all.

Another Important Nugget Comes WHEN She GOES ASHORE TO INVESTIGATE A GLIDER. The Light Aircraft is Out of Commission, But Tereza Pays The Owner, Ludemir (Adalino), to Try Fixing It. He encourages her to be on and animal-Basted GuESING GAME, Telling Her That First-TiMers Always Win. She Decklines, But Files That Information Away for Later, Along with The Name of A Gambling Den, The Golden Fish, WHERE IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE A LOT OF MONEY. What happles there is a jaw-droping scene as beautyify as it is violent and strange.

A setback threatens to halt tereza’s momentum, but she have grown wilier in her escape instincts, Leading to an exploit that borders on the farcial. Sheets an iEets an ideal traveling companion in roberta (Miriam Socarrás), Known As “The Nun,” An Ebulliently Free-Spirited Woman digital bibles to gullible river Communities.

At each step of her journey, Tereza Acquires Knowledge that Expands Her World. From roberta, she Learns that is pesible for people to buy their freedom whenever they hit the age limit and thus avoid theoid. WHEN The TWO FAST FRIENDS FINDHER BLUE DROOL SNAIL, they POP IN THE EYEEDROPS TOGETCHER, AND TEREZA’s DESTINY BECOMES CLEAR AS SHE LEARNS TO DREAM BIGGER.

The Picaresque Quality of the Story Means is Full of Surprises, Developments that Range from Alarming to Absurdly Funny, Without Ever Vending Into Cutes. Much of this is thanks to the wonderful actors, weinberg in Particular. Tereza Lightens Up Physically, Mentally, Emotionally and Perhaps Even Spirituly as She Continues Her Travels, Thought Despite Being A Natural Salesperson with The Bibles Ieving in is Freedom. The Way She Rediscovers Her Body in An Impromptu Dance or A Wash with A Bucket of Water and A Ladle Is Enchanting.

Socarrás is equally captivating, with bright eyes, A Big Hearty Chuckle and An Infecto for Joe de vivre. Together, She and Weinberg Feed Off Each Other’s Energy in a Joyous Exchange of Life-Giving Warmth. And’s Good to See Santoro Playing Down His Matinee-Sidol Looks As A Roomh-AROUND-TOGES, PROBABLY DisREPUTABLE TOUGH GUY, WHOSE EVOLVING RAPPORT WITH.

Mascaro’s Films have notable for his Master of Color and Light, A Quality Still Very Much in Evidence in His First Collaboration with DP Guillermo Garza. The lush Green Jungles Flanking the River Are Almost Irides, the Skies Are A Pristine Blue, and the Sparkling Ripples of the Amazon and All Its Sinuous Curaves Are Hypnotic. Shot in the tight 1:33 aspect Ratio, The Movie Has An Intimacy That Contrast Nicely With Its Expansive Natural Vistas.

Mascaro Doesn’t DownPlay The Ugly and All-Tote-Real Specter of Authoritaritarianism, But It’s Conveyed with Scruffy Sci-Fi Economy, MOSTLY IN BILLBOARDS AND TUSE CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY CHEERY. The Nifty-Looking Backpacks Provides to Colony-Bound Seniors and Stuffed with Adult Diapers are an amusing Touch. What’s Remarkable About The Blue Trail And Makes It Such A Delight Is That Despite All The Oppression in the Air, It’s A Movie Field With Hope and Faith in Human Resilience at Age. The Closing Image Will Make Your Heart Soar. And no, if not the one you were expecting.