I will give director Joao Pedro Rodrigues this: he has his own vision about what eroticism is supposed to be like among the disenfranchised and the forgotten and is willing to stick to his own convictions with the release of his movie O FANTASMA. He's found an impromptu performer in Ricardo Meneses who looks like a more masculine Farley Granger and moves on screen like the embodiment of carnality looking for its complement. Now, if only his movie fared better.
For its first two thirds, the movie concerns in how one young man's obsession starts to creep out of its known boundaries. Sergio is the sanitation department worker who seems to have a fascination with communicating only through grunts. His closest attachment is a dog that he's made his. He even imitates the mannerisms of the dog, and when a female co-worker clumsily flirts with him, he retreats into this "canine" behavior in a sequence that goes on for too long and brings practically zilch into the story, but makes its point: our Sergio cannot communicate well. He's the taciturn type.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. But even in the laziest of erotic stories there is a vague internal life within the main character. There's some description as to who this person is, what he wants, where he comes from. Sergio is given none. Nothing except his overpowering desires, although this isn't such a bad thing if the story had something plausible to say. I've read volumes of gay erotica in my time and even the raunchiest had something to hold onto, however vague, to sustain my interest in the story being told, even if it dealt with themes of debasement like this story does.
Why we're made to believe that he has some interest in his female co-worker I don't know. It looks like filler and would have fared better if the character had been male, and someone real as opposed to idealized. His encounters, while believable on paper, seem ridiculous on screen: his dog leads him to a car where he finds a man in handcuffs. He makes no attempt to help the man but decides he might as well "give him a hand." Nice citizen! But there's no mention, no explanation as to why this man is even there, who he may be, or even if this is just Sergio's imagination gone wild since later a cop finds him curled up against the object of his lust's motorcycle.
As a matter of fact, another person's objects become Sergio's focus. Since he can't have the guy he's pining for (and he knows it), he decides to start collecting the guy's properties. Someone call for a restraining order, especially since he "marks his spot" by peeing on the guy's bed, but apparently this may not work out in Portugal. Anyway... the more Sergio delves in his desire, the more brutal his sexual "encounters" become. The problem is, none of them have any relation to the real world and happen for the sake of happening. Or at least, to bring forth the erroneous idea that BDSM is a lifestyle for the sick and twisted.
Which is exactly what this movie becomes once it hits its last 30 minutes. If at least it had managed to sustain my interest through its disjointed sexual encounters, out of the blue, with no warning, I was hit with one of the worst transitions I've seen on film. Whether the director has a fetishism with the superhero of which this story is named after I cannot say but it made my skin crawl. I just can't believe I sat through this protracted end, but there it is, I did it, and I took a shower right after seeing this. Because for a film that looks and feels like an open toilet in a dingy bathroom, this is all I could do.
For its first two thirds, the movie concerns in how one young man's obsession starts to creep out of its known boundaries. Sergio is the sanitation department worker who seems to have a fascination with communicating only through grunts. His closest attachment is a dog that he's made his. He even imitates the mannerisms of the dog, and when a female co-worker clumsily flirts with him, he retreats into this "canine" behavior in a sequence that goes on for too long and brings practically zilch into the story, but makes its point: our Sergio cannot communicate well. He's the taciturn type.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. But even in the laziest of erotic stories there is a vague internal life within the main character. There's some description as to who this person is, what he wants, where he comes from. Sergio is given none. Nothing except his overpowering desires, although this isn't such a bad thing if the story had something plausible to say. I've read volumes of gay erotica in my time and even the raunchiest had something to hold onto, however vague, to sustain my interest in the story being told, even if it dealt with themes of debasement like this story does.
Why we're made to believe that he has some interest in his female co-worker I don't know. It looks like filler and would have fared better if the character had been male, and someone real as opposed to idealized. His encounters, while believable on paper, seem ridiculous on screen: his dog leads him to a car where he finds a man in handcuffs. He makes no attempt to help the man but decides he might as well "give him a hand." Nice citizen! But there's no mention, no explanation as to why this man is even there, who he may be, or even if this is just Sergio's imagination gone wild since later a cop finds him curled up against the object of his lust's motorcycle.
As a matter of fact, another person's objects become Sergio's focus. Since he can't have the guy he's pining for (and he knows it), he decides to start collecting the guy's properties. Someone call for a restraining order, especially since he "marks his spot" by peeing on the guy's bed, but apparently this may not work out in Portugal. Anyway... the more Sergio delves in his desire, the more brutal his sexual "encounters" become. The problem is, none of them have any relation to the real world and happen for the sake of happening. Or at least, to bring forth the erroneous idea that BDSM is a lifestyle for the sick and twisted.
Which is exactly what this movie becomes once it hits its last 30 minutes. If at least it had managed to sustain my interest through its disjointed sexual encounters, out of the blue, with no warning, I was hit with one of the worst transitions I've seen on film. Whether the director has a fetishism with the superhero of which this story is named after I cannot say but it made my skin crawl. I just can't believe I sat through this protracted end, but there it is, I did it, and I took a shower right after seeing this. Because for a film that looks and feels like an open toilet in a dingy bathroom, this is all I could do.