‘The Blue Trail’ Review: Gabriel Mascaro’s Latest Captures the Newness of Living Through a Journey Down the Amazon River
Guillermo Garza / Desvia
For all of history, the Amazon River has served as the backbone of much of South America, once a powerful source of livelihood and spirituality for the Indigenous populations living upon its banks that slowly transformed into a source of capital with the onset of European colonization. The Blue Trail, Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro's latest vision, contends with both sides of this record, taking audiences on a hypnotic and hilarious genre-bending journey down the world's second-largest river. Starring Denise Weinberg, The Blue Trail constructs a not-so-distant future for Brazil where the older generations are hauled off to a specialized colony to live out their final days in peace, as mandated by an unseen authoritarian government that treats aging as a potential source of economic stagnation.
Weinberg stars as Tereza, a seventy-seven-year-old who works at an alligator-processing factory situated on the Amazon. Returning to her humble home one evening, a government official awards her a “national living heritage” medal made from fake gold, which the vivacious Tereza is far from thrilled to receive. The fiery protagonist must flash her documents wherever she goes since the Brazilian government has decided that anyone over eighty must be relocated to an unseen colony for the rest of their lives. A few days later, her documents are flagged because the age restriction has suddenly been dropped by five years, forcing Tereza to join the elderly settlement three years earlier than expected.
Now, under the legal guardianship of her mostly absent daughter, Tereza decides to take her very first plane ride with her last moments of true autonomy. She hits yet another wall when no airline will sell her a ticket without permission from her new overseer. Tereza dips into her savings to hire a black market boat captain, Cadu (Rodgrigo Santoro), to sail her down the river to find a place where she can finally procure a plane ride. On their journey together, Tereza oscillates between frustration and fascination with Cadu’s bohemian vibe, particularly when he discovers a “blue drool snail” whose secretions possess psychedelic powers and “shows you what you cannot see.” Their encounter reinvigorates a rebellion in Tereza, who decides she will take full charge of her future and avoid being sent to the colony at all costs. After several hilarious confrontations, Tereza finds a new spiritual soulmate in Roberta (Miriam Socarrás), a woman of similar age who has paid for her freedom from the colony by disguising as a nun and selling futuristic e-book bibles up and down the Amazon, affording her a joie-de-vivre that allows her to be fully in control of her destiny. Tereza decides she must do the same with the time she has left.
Guillermo Garza / Desvia
As with his last two works, Neon Bull and Divine Love, Mascaro imbues The Blue Trail with his unique and remarkable insight into the sensual textures of life. He builds a film pulsating with vitality and characters that you want to understand and root for, leaving you begging for more by the time the movie wraps up in a brisk eighty-six minutes (a welcome reprieve among many of the other sluggish titles premiering in this year’s Berlinale). Through Tereza’s rousing nature, Mascaro can platform the perspectives of those advancing in years, outlooks typically written off by popular culture and thus too on the silver screen. The bond that develops between Tereza and Roberta in the film’s final passage defies the benchmark for how aging bodies are often captured in cinema, choosing to concentrate on their increasingly boundless maneuverability rather than their limitations.
While The Blue Trail remains loyal to the situation of its core character, the movie also speaks to the duplicity of late-stage capitalism and the authoritative powers that preserve its death grip in the contemporary world. The film does not envision a grim, despotic regime but one built upon a virtue-signaling facade that never loses track of its fixation on economic expansion. National slogans like “the future is for everyone” brim with increasing hypocrisy as Tereza evades official attempts to have her taken to the colony time and time again. This idea works in thoughtful conversation with the infantilization of the elderly found across many Western cultures today and the social discardment they are faced with.
Guillermo Garza / Desvia
Premiering at this year’s Berlinale on a bone-chilling afternoon with Potsdamer Platz covered in a thick layer of ice, the joy and liberty at the heart of The Blue Trail shone through as a significant standout and welcome salvation. Mascaro’s admiration for the communities in which he shot the film and the natural beauty of the sky reflecting upon the glassy surface of the Amazon transmit the sincerity of the singular narrative he captures, a kaleidoscopic spin on the road film genre that proves it is never too late to harness the newness of living, the true wonders of the world.
4.5/5
‘The Blue Trail’ had its world premiere on Sunday, February 16, as part of the 75th Berlinale's Competition lineup. The film is currently seeking U.S. distribution.