Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz's latest film, “Motel Destino”, was one of the films that I was really hoping would screen at this year's MIFF, and was very excited when I saw that it had made this year's cut. I was looking forward to it for a number of reasons, firstly because I was a big fan of Aïnouz's previous two films, “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmão” and (the surprisingly excellent) “Firebrand”, but really the main reason is because I love genre film making, and “Motel Destino” is a good old fashioned sexy neo-noir. After the explosion of the genre in the 1990's, it feels like it's been a long while since a really fantastic neo-noir came along, and I was hoping that “Motel Destino” would be it.
“Motel Destino” is a very stylish, sexy film filled to the brim with sex, blood, nudity (male and female) and violence. With the film taking place predominately in a sleazy sex hotel, Aïnouz and his cinematographer Hélène Louvart used this location to their advantage to shoot the film in big, bright, gaudy neon colours to the point of overuse that it burns the retina of your eyes. There is nothing subtle about these types of hotels, they are seriously tacky but at least they never pretend to be anything other than what they are: a room where strangers can get down for some wild sex, with no questions asked. It is the perfect location for the type of characters that inhabit this film. These are all bad people doing worse things to one another. Loyalty, trust, friendship.....these are words that do not exist in the world of “Motel Destino”. You need to be looking out for one person and one person alone, and that is yourself, because as soon as you focus on anybody else, that person stabs you in the back and leaves you for dead. Believe it or not, this was one of the issues I had with this film because what normally makes for a great neo-noir is seeing a relatively good person being convinced or conned into doing a crime (or worse), usually for love. Here though, right from the outset, you know that none of these characters would have a problem offing the other without a second thought, so you lose a moral dilemma needed for the film to work, or the film lacks a moral compass I guess.
In saying all that, just like the hotel itself, at least all of the characters involved are true to themselves and do not pretend to be something they are not. They are all scum (maybe too harsh of a word), but they know they are scum. The three leads are all excellent in their roles and at exposing their character's flaws. Fabio Assunção plays Elias, the owner of Motel Destino and the ageing husband of Dayana, and for mine, he was the standout performer in the film. At times he comes across as the most disgusting human being around, but there is a patheticness to him also that you cannot help but feel bad for him. It is a showy performance in that he gets to unleash his anger at times and scream and shout, while behaving badly as he is regularly intoxicated. You can also feel his anguish when he realises that he is being cheated on, the pain and embarrassment that that entails. He is legitimately hurt, and now wants to inflict pain on those that wronged him. Nataly Rocha plays his wife Dayana, and she is the personification of sex itself in “Motel Destino”. She oozes sexuality and is not afraid to show it if wants to sleep with someone, despite her marriage. Rocha is great at portraying the sexual side of her character, but I think she fails when it comes to the manipulation of Heraldo. She is not conniving or duplicitous enough, and when it comes time to propose to kill Elias, it feels very spur of the moment, not something she has always wanted to do like she claims. Iago Xavier plays the lead role of Heraldo, and does so in a very quiet fashion. He says little but pays attention to every little detail, knowing that any wrong move could end in his death. He has a line late in the film which sums up his life when a cop asks him what happened? He replies “I was born. Someone tried to kill me. Just like every other day. He wasn't the first, and he wont be the last”. Heraldo is a guy that is forever on the run, and Xavier actually does a really good job at portraying this fear and paranoia that is within him, although he is able to push it aside when he needs to.
When it comes to neo-noir films, one element that has almost become a prerequisite of the genre is the heat. These stories often take place in desert towns or in places going through a heat wave (why, I am not sure). One of the hardest things to portray on film, in my opinion, is the actual heat. So many times it comes down to a character explaining how hot it is and you think “really?, it doesn't look it”. I think “Motel Destino” is one of those rare films that does an excellent job of making both the characters and us, the audience, feel the heat of the environment. It looks hot all the time, which is done via costume choices (or lack of them), cinematography, and the performances. This is a hot movie!
My biggest problem with “Motel Destino” though is how derivative it is and because of how familiar it is to other films of its kind, that the audience find themselves waiting for the film to catch up to them, as we know exactly where this story is heading, but it takes far too long to get there. We know that Dayana will eventually con Heraldo into killing her husband for her, but it takes what feels like forever to get there, which makes the film feel padded and that it is dragging. When the film should be at it's most exciting, “Motel Destino” instead finds itself plodding and stumbling its way to its finale, which ends in a very surreal moment involving a white horse. It is unfortunate too, because until the final half an hour, I was really with this film, but by the end I found myself bored with it. It became too familiar, and frankly that final half an hour just isn't believable at all, particularly compared to what came before it. I actually got more and more frustrated with the film as it went along.
Overall, I think “Motel Destino” has a lot of fantastic elements to it, but the sum of all those parts turns out to be a bit of a disappointment. It begins very strong, but as it continues the story lacked momentum and thus the film started to flounder until it ended more with a whimper rather than a bang. I was particularly frustrated that one story strand was not followed through until the end, even though I understood the reasoning for doing this. The film is definitely well acted, and beautifully shot and designed (hey, I'm a sucker for neon), but the script itself needed some tightening up, particularly in the final act. I certainly did not hate the film, but after director Karim Aïnouz's previous two films, “Motel Destino” was something of a let down.
2.5 Stars.
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