Mubi Monday: Hard Labor (2011)

The first feature co-written and co-directed by Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, who would then go on to helm the excellent Good Manners, this may not be anything truly great, and it's not helped by being too unsure of where it wants to position itself, but it's an interesting and assured debut. There's no subtlety here, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. People don't always appreciate subtlety, and sometimes it can be satisfying to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.

Helena Albergaria plays Helena, a woman who decides to start up a business as a local grocery store owner. The timing isn’t great though. Her husband (Otávio, played by Marat Descartes) has just been let go from his job, he’s due to find out how difficult it is to find gainful employment again, and the problems and bills soon start piling up as the shop reveals a number of hidden problems. Helena has people working for her, including a young woman named Paula (Naloana Lima), but they need money and a work/life balance just as much as she does.

I don’t always do this, but I checked out a number of reviews for this movie before writing my own. I wanted to ensure that my own interpretation of the film, as simple as it seemed, wasn’t wildly out of whack with how others viewed it. Most people seemed to see it for what it was, I was relieved to find, but most people also seemed to dismiss it as something a bit too messy and painfully obvious for film fans. I disagree there, although I can understand some of the criticism.

Dutra and Rojas aren’t interested in keeping everything neat and tidy. The message at the heart of this is the most important thing, or so it seems, but they still do enough to wrap an intriguing and entertaining movie around it. Things could have been adjusted to help the film lean more strongly into any one of a number of genres, but I appreciate the uneven bobbing and weaving between so many different key moments.

Albergaria, Descartes, and Lima are great as the three central characters. While they are ably supported by a uniformly excellent cast, the leads perform brilliantly while also embodying their own part of the movie’s messaging. Albergaria deserves the most praise, considering the tightrope she walks as her character struggles in a pinch-point that has her poised to be either victim or small tyrant at any moment, but everyone does brilliant work in service to the talented team behind the camera.

There are many ways that this could be better, and I admit that I would have also liked to see things mean much further into the potential horror elements, but Hard Labor is still an accomplished feature debut. There are a number of scenes that will stay in your mind after the film has finished, including a brilliant and darkly comedic final moment, and Dutra and Rojas seem to have succeeded in giving us the film that makes the statement they wanted to make. 

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Good Manners (2017)

Isabél Zuaa plays Clara, a woman who ends up getting a job as a nurse/helper/nanny in the household of pregnant Ana (Marjorie Estiano). Clara ends up being more than just an employee to Ana, helping her get through a very difficult time in her life by becoming a companion, and a sexual partner. But the baby coming along could change everything, especially when Clara is told of how he was conceived, and what that might mean for the future.

Co-written and co-directed by Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, Good Manners is a film that feels very much in line with some other titles from the past few years that have successfully mixed some very real human drama with elements of creature features. It's a sweet tale that also uses some decent special effects in the second half to realise the less realistic aspect of the storyline, leading viewers carefully through ground that covers love, loss, fear, and the general nature of being a parent and wanting to keep your child safe from the dangers of the outside world.

Zuaa is the player who gets the most screentime here, and she does a very good job. More awkward and stiff in the early scenes, that's absolutely in line with how her character is as she is struggling to get a job that she may not be entirely qualified for, but she definitely needs. Estiano has a slightly easier time of things, in terms of what she's asked to convey, but does equally well. Then you have Miguel Lobo as young Joel. Lobo gives a frankly fantastic performance, as sweet and endearing as it is worrying and frustrating at times. There are a number of supporting roles, all cast perfectly, but the heart of the film is the relationship between parent and child, and I'm not going to single anyone else out from a uniformly excellent cast.

Apparently inspired by an urban legend, Dutra and Rojas have made something that feels very much steeped in the spirit of Brazil, yet also brings to the fore some themes and moments universally recognisable to all. There are times when this could all too easily be seen as something silly, or at least something tonally inconsistent, but Dutra and Rojas are savvy in keeping the focus on the leads, and how their relationship is affected by one huge problem that they're trying to cope with, which allows for the rest of the film to play out sensitively, and in a pretty grounded way.

The main thing that Good Manners gets wrong is simply not being as good as some of the other movies I have alluded to in a way that is vague enough to try and avoid spoilers. It's not as moving as some, not as visually stylish as others, and just falls a bit short of the mark for anyone who has found themselves lost in other cinematic worlds exploring similar dynamics. That's not a massive failing, and everyone working on this seems to be doing their best with what resources are available to them, but it does stop it from being at the very top tier of a recent crop of movies within a specific sub-genre.

Watch this, enjoy it, and look forward to the next films we get from Dutra and Rojas, whether they're working together again or helming projects on their own.

8/10

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