This feature film debut from Brazilian filmmaker Mauro Carvalho is an utterly charming tale of young love that failed to run its course once real life got in its way. It is told to us by one half of the couple Diego (Thiago Cazado) some years later as he reflects back on what life was like before we left his hometown to attend a film school in California for 4 years.
The love of his life was Matheus (Rodrigo Bittes) a handsome young man who he had met on a gay online dating site, but for the sake of making the story sound better, Diego changed their first encounter as to when they were out in a field playing with model airplanes.
It was love at first sight and they were very quickly totally infatuated with each other and totally in sync over even the smallest details of their relationship. They moved in with together, set up home and then married. They spent every moment they could with each other, and even Diego’s mother couldn’t stop enthusing on what a perfect couple they made.
Diego worked as a photographer, although he secretly harbored a desire to be a movie director, whilst Matheus was finishing his architectural studies. It was, however, Diego’s ambition that was the couples undoing especially when he had to confess that for once he had held back the truth from Matheus about future plans he had been fermenting in secret.
It is a tale of mixed emotions from the unbridled joy and passion that only comes with first love to the sadness they encounter having to make decisions that they (and you) know they will regret probably for some years to come.
The two young actors had a remarkable chemistry making this story so utterly believable, and the intensity of their relationship was brought home even more by Carvalho’s frequent tendency to let the camera linger a long time on several of the more poignant scenes.
Brazilain queer cinema is always a reliable and interesting source for good LGBT movies, and this is yet another one that audiences will really love.
