Screening at TIFF: Gabriel Mascaro’s ‘The Blue Trail’

The winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear, Gabriel Mascaro’s compact, dystopian The Blue Trail (or O Último Azul) follows a 77-year-old Brazilian woman escaping a futuristic internment for the elderly, while discovering life and liberation along the Amazon. The Neon Bull director’s gentle sci-fi drama presents a vivid and detailed world, one whose murkiest elements are often left to innuendos and the imagination (but feel no less threatening). The result is energetic, thoughtful and introspective, making for a uniquely life-affirming coming of (old) age saga.

The movie’s brisk 85 minutes are aided by a wonderfully quirky score from Memo Guerra, whose bouncy atmospheric melodies introduce us to the aging, curious Tereza (Denise Weinberg) during her menial job at a caiman meatpacking plant (a cousin to the crocodile). Mascaro’s 4:3 frame is postcard-like and pristine, mirroring the base satisfaction forced upon Brazilian citizenry by a paternalistic government, whose announcements over an omniscient PA system speak of national productivity. One day, Tereza’s quaint shack is adorned with laurels as an official gesture, designating her a living monument. However, men and women her age are also required to show paperwork for simple transactions, and are whisked away to a mysterious camp for the elderly (via trucks called “wrinkle wagons”) when they hit 80 years of age.

Overnight, this age of retirement is reduced to 75, forcing Tereza to flee before she’s disappeared. Rumor has it no one ever returns from this colony, but most people are none the wiser. Still, Tereza has life left in her, and she wants to experience an airplane before it’s too late, though she needs permission from her stern daughter before purchasing a ticket. Her only remaining option is to hitch a ride downriver to charter an illegal light plane, a journey that proves surprising in its capacity for companionship.

Weinberg’s conception of Tereza, as an occasionally rankled, fed-up woman in search of adventure, leads to one of the year’s most understated performances, one that draws the eye in unexpected ways. The film’s naturalistic landscape is sometimes broken up by bursts of color or by some minor, cyberpunk detail—like a dam of discarded tires—which draw fleeting observations about the nature of the setting. “When there’s too much of a bad thing, it tricks the eye,” notes Tereza about the abandoned rubber. “It even looks pretty.” She may as well be talking about The Blue Trail itself, a wonderfully picturesque movie whose authoritarian ageism, in service of capitalist productivity, lurks in quiet corners.

Despite her age, there’s still life left in Tereza’s bones, and still love left to give. Torn between camaraderie and the journey ahead of her, the aged grandma’s brief pit stops here and there introduce colorful supporting characters—like the stoic boat captain Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro) and the elderly digital Bible saleswoman Roberta (Miriam Socorrás)—people she connects with, but who she soon has to consider leaving behind, or even taking advantage of, to evade the long arm of the law.

Like the layovers of Tereza’s Amazon journey, the film has emotional pit stops, too, courtesy of magical realist flourishes. Bright blue slime from a rare and mysterious snail is said to give users a high that shows them the future when it’s squeezed into their eyeballs, a drug trip we’re allowed to witness from afar, but whose subjective effects remain a mystery. However, based on the lucid clarity with which characters react—they usually come to vital realizations about where they’re headed—this psychic journey becomes a stepping stone to Tereza et al. determining what they truly want out of life, be it adventure, companionship, or quite simply, contentment.

The twists and turns along Tereza’s journey allow for magnificent shifting scenery (and a few dour backdrops as well, depending on her proximity to police, and how clearly the movie’s politics fade into view). Mascaro and cinematographer Guillermo Garza ensure a consistent, simmering momentum as the characters either limp across still frames with determination or dance cautiously in fluid close-ups as they inch closer to finding what they want out of life once they realize how they’re capable of living sans fascistic constraints. Few films this year have been as soulful or as quietly defiant.

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