FATHER’S CHAIR (Luciano Moura). 93 minutes. Subtitled. Screens Saturday (October 20), 7:15 pm, at the Royal Cinema, as part of the Brazil Film Fest. For complete lineup, see Indie & Rep Film. Rating: NNNN
The Brazilian Film & TV Festival just wrapped, but you can keep the party going at the Brazil Film Fest, which takes over the Royal from tonight (Thursday, October 18) through the weekend.
We wrote about the feature Dirty Hearts, which is part of both fests, here (http://now.uz/RU7WPr). But among BFF’s other entries, I highly recommend Father’s Chair, director Luciano Moura’s gripping and involving drama about a father’s search for his son.
Theo (Wagner Moura), a busy doctor in a wealthy suburb of São Paulo, is in the midst of a messy breakup and lashes out in anger when dealing with his wife (Mariana Lima) and alienated teenage son, Pedro (Brás Antunes).
When Pedro mysteriously gets hold of a horse and runs away, however, Theo drops everything to find him. And it’s on this road trip that the film finds its soul, as Theo talks to everyone and anyone who’s come in contact with the boy, from impoverished shanty dwellers and humble ferry operators to privileged kids at a counterculture music festival.
Director Moura toys with sentimentality occasionally, especially near the end, but the picture is effective because of Wagner Moura’s go-for-broke performance and spontaneous turns from the supporting actors.
There’s lots of craft to the film, which begins as a tense, shaky-cam domestic thriller and then turns into a calm, measured multi-generational drama, quietly capturing the beauty and openness of the landscape.
