Hivos Tiger Awards Competition screening - review - RIOCORRENTE (Riverrun) by Paulo Sacramento
There will be no narrative spoon feeding for the audience in Sacramento’s Riocorrente, yet there will be plenty of fire and energy. The fire is the symbolism for an eruption of frustration and dissatisfaction with the way society moves in Brazil. This society is represented by two of the leading characers, one who is a quiet intellectual and another whose rage and anger is fist clenched and sees him fantasising about throwing Molotov cocktails all over his town. But what is more is that what brings these two opposites together are the attentions of an attractive woman who seems to crave the love of both and seems unable to decide which one to remain loyal and devoted to.
All the while, a young kid roams the streets where he meets danger at every corner and greets it with a mixture of passivity and fearlessness.
Paulo Sacramento’s film has a relatively simple narrative within its love triangle structure, but it is clear from its hypnotic beginnings, as the camera watches the light reflect upon dangerously dark waters, that this will also be engagingly flirting with experimentalism and poetry – highlighted by some precise cinematography choices and some carefully studied special effects particularly towards the end. In fact, the experimental approach takes over to the point where the ending culminates in a threatening vortex of violence, mystery and psychological pathos that willingly remains an enigma waiting to be interpreted.
Riocorrente is a brave film to have been made by a Brazilian filmmaker and released on the year when Brazil will be in the eyes of the world as it prepares to host the World Cup. It deeply reveals an uncomfortable side of the Brazilian environment and exposes some serious almost traumatic cracks in the pavements of the households of Brazilians’ rich and poor.
Never obvious and always seeking audience interaction, Riocorrente is willingly cold but never distance. Seen on the European side of the world, Brazilian unhappiness reflects the class split that is experienced all over the world. So, while the focus on Brazil is evident, the aims and outlines of Sacramento’s work could translate universally. And it’s up to the world to listen.
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