Private Desert
In Aly Muritiba’s Brazilian drama, a suspended cop goes in search of a woman he has met online.
The first thing to be said about this film from Brazil is that what it gets right matters far more than what it gets wrong. The filmmaker, Aly Muritiba, is unknown to me but he is both director and co-author of the screenplay and is well established in his home country. No need then to be surprised at the technical assurance of Private Desert or by the quality of the performances in it. As for the story it tells, the first half-hour is set in Curitiba, the home of Daniel (Antonio Saboia) who has been involved as a training instructor in the local police force while at home he looks after his aged incapacitated father (Luthero De Almeida) with help from his sister Dé (Cynthia Senek). Daniel's treatment of his father shows that he is a caring man but when we meet him he has been accused of assaulting a rookie.
Although Daniel acknowledges that he has erred, the full details of this incident remain somewhat vague but his situation disturbs him as does the fact that he has lost contact with Sara, somebody whom he has never met but with whom he has formed a close bond online. Rather than this being merely a sexual connection, Daniel realises that he is in love with her so suddenly not hearing back is devastating to him. Private Desert devotes its first half-hour to portraying this in an unhurried but very believable way and only then do we accompany Daniel as he leaves home and makes a long cross-country drive to Sobradinho, a small town in the north-east of Brazil. This is where Sara lives and his intention is to find her and to discover why she stopped communicating after their rapport online had been so strong.
Private Desert is an unusual love story centred on the problems around the relationship of these two and much of it carries the same conviction as is found in the opening segment but with an increasing emotional impact. However, the screenplay having once established that degree of reality takes on a tone that by comparison feels more fictional in the film’s later stages and that is somewhat disappointing. To explain why many people will find the film compelling in spite of that means disclosing a crucial plot development, one that emerges only halfway through the picture, so those who want to be taken by surprise in this respect should stop reading here.
Admittedly the fact that Private Desert is distributed in the UK by Peccadillo Pictures is a pointer to the film’s crucial subject matter since their films regularly deal with LGBTQ issues. What Daniel discovers when he eventually finds Sara is that he has fallen for someone who is non-binary. In private and online Sara may be Sara, but in daily life Sara is Robson and is concealing the fact of being gender fluid. How Daniel will respond to this totally unexpected discovery becomes central to the film along with the pressure put on Robson once his situation is fully apparently to his grandmother (Zezita De Matos) and to the pastor of the church where he worships with her (Sandro Guerra).
As indicated above I found that the greater drama of the film’s last quarter suffered from some of the dialogue sounding artificial and from some of the situations appearing contrived. But, given that the material could have been handled in an exploitative way and also that it could have had a self-consciously propagandist air in line with the extreme divisiveness currently inherent in trans and gender issues, Muritiba’s film by taking things quietly and sympathetically hits exactly the most useful note. Furthermore, while Saboia and the supporting cast headed by the excellent Thomas Aquino do well, the stand-out performance despite this being his film debut comes from Pedro Fasanaro who is indeed non-binary. With Fasanaro leading the way, the love of the central couple is portrayed with real sensitivity and strength and nowhere is it more compelling than when they dance together and the music that accompanies them is Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. Yet that downside is to be found again when far less tellingly this song is used a second time as the end credits roll. Even so, it's the earlier scene that you remember and viewers strongly drawn to the subject-matter will either forgive or disagree with my reservations.
Original title: Deserto Particular.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Antonio Saboia, Pedro Fasanaro, Thomas Aquino, Laila Garin, Zezita De Matos, Sandro Guerra, Luthero De Almeida, Otávio Linhares, Cynthia Senek, Flavio Bauraqui, Barbara Borgga, Leo Miranda.
Dir Aly Muritiba, Pro Antonio Gonçalves Junior, Luis Galvão Teles, Gonçalo Galvão Teles and Aly Muritiba, Screenplay Aly Muritiba and Henrique Dos Santos, Ph Luis Armando Arteaga, Pro Des Fabíola Bonofiglia and Marcos Pedroso, Ed Patrícia Saramago, Music Felipe Ayres, Costumes Isbella Brasileiro.
Pandora Filmes/Muritiba Filmes/Grafo Audiovisual/Anacoluto/Fado Filmes-Peccadillo Pictures.
121 mins. Brazil/Portugal. 2021. US Rel: 27 August 2022. UK Rel: 14 April 2023. Available on digital platforms. Cert. 15.
