Saudade/Sehnsucht (Longing)
Germany, 2003
Director: Jürgen Brüning
Stars: Hendrik Scheider, Aldri D'Anunciaçao, Tarik Qazi, Daniel Bätscher
Our Rating:  (see more films with this rating)
Saudade, the “telenovela” by the German first-time director Jürgen Brüning, is marketed as a “trashy, gay, Brazilian sexy-slut-soap-opera”, but this tale of three German gay boys on vacation in Brazil contains little sex and no sluts at all. Rich kid Cyrus (Tarik Qazi) is trying to find his Brazilian mother, music lover Tim (Daniel Bätscher) wants to bring together German and Brazilian hip hop, and the romantic Erik (Hendrik Scheider) is in search of love. They are staying at the fancy beach house of Cyrus’s father, spending their time snorkelling and being waited on by the Brazilian maid Maria (Maria Lucia da Silva Ludwig). To make some extra money, the boys run their own pay-per-view website, somehow entertaining their paying viewers by jumping around and kissing each other, without showing any frontal nudity.
Saudade’s claim of being a telenovela immediately suggests a comparison to Latin Boys Go To Hell, another queer independent film that takes the telenovela genre as its inspiration. But unlike Latin Boys, Saudade misses the over-the-top hysteria and melodrama that make telenovelas such enjoyable viewing experiences. Moreover, where Latin Boys is hot and sexy, Saudade is as prudish as the boys’ website. The romantic sex scenes are cut off before they even have started. A “sexy-slut-soap-opera” needs to show us some skin! And if Saudade is trashy at all, it must be because of its underdeveloped script, clichéd dialogue, and awkward acting, rather than its implied campiness. Still, despite of its many shortcomings, I not only found the film entertaining but also intriguing, specifically in the way in which it – intentionally or not – plays with the conventions of both Hollywood and independent cinema.
All three storylines focus on the coming together of German modernity with the exotic culture of Brazil. In the search of his mother, Tarik uses both the internet and traditional “black magic”; Tim combines German techno with local Latin beats. But it is Erik’s search for romance that literally embodies the attempt to merge the two cultures. Of all three storylines, this one is the best developed and most interesting, and the closest to the telenovela genre. Erik’s first sex encounter with a black Brazilian man goes awfully wrong when Erik accidentally kills him. Erik subsequently falls in love with a black Brazilian soap opera star Miguel (Aldri Anunciação) with whom he shares romantic moments on the beach. Their love story turns sour when Erik realizes that the man he killed is actually Miguel’s brother. What is our hyper blond German boy to do? Does he jeopardize his only chance on real romance by telling the truth, or is he willing to keep the dark secret to himself? The Erik/Miguel love story is the film’s strongest asset, and not only because of the disarming performance by the extremely cute Anunciação.
What makes Saudade so intriguing is that the film presents this melodramatic telenovela storyline in an inconsistent mix of different cinematic styles. The love story is conventional Hollywood, although very amateurishly filmed. But then Erik and Miguel attend a meeting of a black and gay empowerment group. Its leader gives a long political speech, filmed in a style reminiscent of the Third Cinema of the 1970s, only to be followed by a tacky scene showing the performance of two local drag queens. The film’s best scene crosscuts between shots of Erik and Miguel, both travelling on the bus though in opposite directions, suggesting either a fatal clash or a happy reunion. Here the montage is superb, making me wonder why the rest of the film has been edited so badly. It may be a coincidence, but the scene seems to be heavily inspired by Dziga Vertov’s 1929 Man With A Movie Camera, a classic film of the Soviet Montage Cinema. Moreover, to his credit, director Jürgen Brüning cleverly resists the temptation of presenting a closed (either happy or tragic) ending. All this does not save Saudade from being a crappy film, but makes it, at least, a rather intriguing one.
Brüning is best known as the producer of the Bruce LaBruce films Hustler White, Skin Flick, and The Raspberry Reich, but as a director, he has a little way to go. LaBruce’s conspicuous amateurism is a cinematic strategy, but Brüning’s amateurism remains just plain amateurism. Yet, Saudade deserves the benefit of the doubt for presenting a gay love story that pushes boundaries by combining different cinematic styles and that does not fall in the trap of Hollywood romance. Its marketing may suggest a rather dopey spectacle of gay young bodies exposed under the Brazilian sun, but the film – fortunately – fails to deliver in that respect. Instead, with a more consistent montage, clever dialogue, and better acting, Saudade could have been a groundbreaking film. Both the story and the flawed way in which it is presented show potential; it’s just a pity that the end result keeps us longing for a better film.
Summerstorm
Saudade Official Website
Review by Jaap Kooijman
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