A mess of misused metaphors and confused imagery from start to finish, I was left scratching my head wondering who these people are and why they behave the way they do. Forgive me for expecting the film to provide any answers. The good news: if you like beautiful boys, Ricardo Meneses as Sergio is one of the most gorgeous creatures to ever stand before a lens. Despite the hopelessly confusing script, his acting (such as it is) is amazing, especially at his age (18) and experience (first film). Too bad he had to be "discovered" by a director who makes his audience beg for each scrap of insight, and pretentiously expects the viewer to read their own interpretation into whatever nonsense he sets up as his next scene. I wanted to give it the benefit of a doubt, so after sitting through one screening of this erotically charged but confused movie, I sat through it again with the director's commentary on. Cheating, I know, but after paying all that money for the DVD I was hoping to gain some idea of what was going on. After the second screening I was half in love with the young lead actor, but the commentary destroyed any respect I may have had for the director.
Sergio is a garbage collector in Lisbon. He works a graveyard shift with an assortment of oddballs, and in between collecting garbage he has a series of sexual escapades that seem impossibly jaded for one so young. While other boys his age are swimming or surfing, he's dressing up in a full-body suit of latex, having anonymous sex in men's rooms and exploring kinky sex with any willing male he can find. Just so you know how kinky he is, in one scene he masturbates in the shower while strangling himself with the shower-massage cord. You have to wonder where the imagination comes from, then you realize that the writer-director has been harboring some pretty extreme sexual fantasies about the neighborhood garbage men. Sergio finally meets a man who's not interested, because he's straight. This was not the first or last thing in this film I didn't get; when I was that age, I understood that some guys just couldn't be had, so I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Not Sergio. He takes obsession to unheard of heights, especially for an 18 year old. He stalks the swimmer, goes through his garbage, and steals his torn old swimsuit.
In one of the first of many explicit sexual encounters in O Fantasma, Sergio comes upon a policeman handcuffed and gagged in the backseat of a patrol car. He masturbates the cop to orgasm, leaves him tied up, and then runs off to work, where he spends the rest of the night sniffing his hand and licking the residue. I hoped that the director's commentary would explain how and why the cop is tied up in his own squad car, but his sole comment on the soundtrack is, "You don't understand in the film why the cop is handcuffed". I didn't understand it in the audience, either. In one scene, Sergio is busy cleaning the doghouse, when he turns and sees the foreman standing in the door. He pushes past, their faces register some indications of conflict, and then the foreman shuts the door. The director's commentary on this action is, "The door closes, and you know what will happen, but you don't see it". Uh, no, I'm afraid the relationship between Sergio and the foreman is the least developed of all the underdeveloped relationships in this film, so what happens next is anybody's guess. Not that I cared; Sergio is the only character whose personality is even partially explored, and all we ever learn about him is that he's sexually kinky to the max. The picture goes on endlessly, with Sergio refusing to let go of his obsession for the swimmer, until he has the most excruciatingly slow breakdown ever recorded in a movie. At the same time, what little there is of coherence also breaks down. The director's commentary infuriated me even more toward the end; after spending most of the commentary praising the cooperation, talent and maturity of his young lead, he proclaims, "It is cruel to say it, but he wants to continue acting, and I think he will not act again. I will not use him in my next film it's like his body has been used up". I haven't had the benefit of seeing anything else by Mr. Rodrigues, but if given the choice of viewing his next film or Ricardo Meneses next appearance I think I'd opt for the beautiful boy any day. After botching the attempted kidnapping of his beloved obsession, Sergio takes off to spend the balance of the film wordlessly running. The final scenes treat us to a guided tour of the sights, sounds (and by way of commentary) smells of a garbage dump. Sergio wanders through the dump clutching a live rabbit he finds among the garbage ("I saw the rabbits there" says the director, "so it's believable"). Grasping for a final metaphor, he remarks "He is like a cross between a bug and an insect" a comment that seems to me to be a cross between the idiotic and the insipid. He then ends this drivel after the slowest twenty minutes of film I've ever sat through by more or less telling us he didn't really know how to end it like I hadn't figured that out a full ten minutes before the end credits started running. As Sergio continues to stumble on into the dawn before the final fadeout, the director says, "I could bring him back to the city, but that would not make much sense". The idea of a scene that might not make much sense didn't prevent him from filming the other 90 minutes of this drek I dare say he should have gone for it.
Sergio is a garbage collector in Lisbon. He works a graveyard shift with an assortment of oddballs, and in between collecting garbage he has a series of sexual escapades that seem impossibly jaded for one so young. While other boys his age are swimming or surfing, he's dressing up in a full-body suit of latex, having anonymous sex in men's rooms and exploring kinky sex with any willing male he can find. Just so you know how kinky he is, in one scene he masturbates in the shower while strangling himself with the shower-massage cord. You have to wonder where the imagination comes from, then you realize that the writer-director has been harboring some pretty extreme sexual fantasies about the neighborhood garbage men. Sergio finally meets a man who's not interested, because he's straight. This was not the first or last thing in this film I didn't get; when I was that age, I understood that some guys just couldn't be had, so I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. Not Sergio. He takes obsession to unheard of heights, especially for an 18 year old. He stalks the swimmer, goes through his garbage, and steals his torn old swimsuit.
In one of the first of many explicit sexual encounters in O Fantasma, Sergio comes upon a policeman handcuffed and gagged in the backseat of a patrol car. He masturbates the cop to orgasm, leaves him tied up, and then runs off to work, where he spends the rest of the night sniffing his hand and licking the residue. I hoped that the director's commentary would explain how and why the cop is tied up in his own squad car, but his sole comment on the soundtrack is, "You don't understand in the film why the cop is handcuffed". I didn't understand it in the audience, either. In one scene, Sergio is busy cleaning the doghouse, when he turns and sees the foreman standing in the door. He pushes past, their faces register some indications of conflict, and then the foreman shuts the door. The director's commentary on this action is, "The door closes, and you know what will happen, but you don't see it". Uh, no, I'm afraid the relationship between Sergio and the foreman is the least developed of all the underdeveloped relationships in this film, so what happens next is anybody's guess. Not that I cared; Sergio is the only character whose personality is even partially explored, and all we ever learn about him is that he's sexually kinky to the max. The picture goes on endlessly, with Sergio refusing to let go of his obsession for the swimmer, until he has the most excruciatingly slow breakdown ever recorded in a movie. At the same time, what little there is of coherence also breaks down. The director's commentary infuriated me even more toward the end; after spending most of the commentary praising the cooperation, talent and maturity of his young lead, he proclaims, "It is cruel to say it, but he wants to continue acting, and I think he will not act again. I will not use him in my next film it's like his body has been used up". I haven't had the benefit of seeing anything else by Mr. Rodrigues, but if given the choice of viewing his next film or Ricardo Meneses next appearance I think I'd opt for the beautiful boy any day. After botching the attempted kidnapping of his beloved obsession, Sergio takes off to spend the balance of the film wordlessly running. The final scenes treat us to a guided tour of the sights, sounds (and by way of commentary) smells of a garbage dump. Sergio wanders through the dump clutching a live rabbit he finds among the garbage ("I saw the rabbits there" says the director, "so it's believable"). Grasping for a final metaphor, he remarks "He is like a cross between a bug and an insect" a comment that seems to me to be a cross between the idiotic and the insipid. He then ends this drivel after the slowest twenty minutes of film I've ever sat through by more or less telling us he didn't really know how to end it like I hadn't figured that out a full ten minutes before the end credits started running. As Sergio continues to stumble on into the dawn before the final fadeout, the director says, "I could bring him back to the city, but that would not make much sense". The idea of a scene that might not make much sense didn't prevent him from filming the other 90 minutes of this drek I dare say he should have gone for it.