Motel Destino
Karim Aïnouz sets his latest drama in a Brazilian sex motel.
Image courtesy of Curzon.
As it continues to develop, the career of the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz suggests certain parallels with that of François Ozon. Both men are openly gay and first made a real mark in cinema with gay-themed films that could be thought of as being aimed first and foremost at gay audiences (in Aïnouz’s case that was with Madame Sata in 2002 and with 2014’s Futuro Beach). In each case gay elements have continued to play a strong part in many of their later films but there has also been a refusal to be pigeonholed and, being writers as well as directors (with Aïnouz it is usually done with collaborators), they have consciously built up a much wider audience through adopting an extended range of material. In 2019 Aïnouz’s The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmao, a work about sisters, won a prize at Cannes but also possessed a certain mainstream appeal while his imaginative documentary Mariner of the Mountains (2021) was a highly personal work unconnected with his sexuality but exploring his relationship with his father's country, Algeria, which he visited for the first time at the age of fifty-four.
As with Ozon, Aïnouz’s career has seen him developing his directorial skills to the extent that one now expects his work to show absolute assurance. That is again apparent in Motel Destino, a highly atmospheric melodrama which plays out in the heat of a beach town on the Brazilian coast in the state of Ceará. Here Aïnouz is giving us a work of a strongly sexual nature but what is unexpected is that, despite numerous homoerotic hints and elements, the central couple are heterosexual and the film is one made to appeal equally to both gays and straights as well as to anyone not keen to categorise.
The quality of the film-making is immediately established as Motel Destino gets off to a remarkably fast start. We are at once introduced to 21-year-old Heraldo (Iago Xavier) and his slightly older brother, Jorge (Renan Capivara), whose playful fighting on a beach while dressed only in swimwear illustrates perfectly how the images will convey a homoerotic eye even when not dealing with gay characters as such. We learn that the brothers get by through working for a drug gang run by formidable matriarch, Bambina (Fabíola Líper) but want to break away and move to São Paulo. Reluctant to release them, Bambina insists that they at least carry out a hit for her that will punish a debtor. However, Jorge has to handle it alone when Heraldo allows himself to take off with a girl at a bar, Marta (Isabela Catão), intent on a night of sex at the Motel Destino, an establishment which exists for that very purpose. However, Marta is leading him on and when Heraldo gets away he finds that the hit has gone terribly wrong and that on account of his absence he carries the blame for that. Bambina is now out to get him and puts her strong man, Rafael (David Santos), on his track, a fact which causes Heraldo to return to the Motel Destino both to work there and to hide out.
This may sound to be a description of a large part of the film, but it is in fact covered in less than the first fifteen minutes so quick is the pacing. We are drawn in by that, by the wonderful brightly coloured photography by the great Hélène Louvart (who also photographed Eurídice Gusmao for Aïnouz) and by the quality of the acting. However, the development of the piece proves to be less impressive than its opening section. What follows is set mainly in the motel itself and the plot comes to centre on Heraldo and its two proprietors, the older Elias (Fabio Assunção), who is possessive and jealous, and his young wife Dayana (Nataly Rocha) who soon becomes flirtatious with the newcomer. When Dayana first suggests employing Heraldo, Elias asks her if he is hot. The answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’ and much of the first half of Motel Destino living up to its ‘18’ certificate plays as the kind of drama that is essentially a sex movie albeit one that contrasts spicy scenes featuring Heraldo and Dayana with a portrait of the sleazy motel which emphasises its sordid nature.
The skill that has gone into its making encourages one for a time to accept Motel Destino on its own terms as erotic entertainment. But then the film seems set to offer something more. Rather belatedly we learn of the terrible childhood of Heraldo and Jorge which invites sympathy for them and the plot development starts to echo films of the 1940s, most obviously the two James M. Cain adaptations Double Indemnity (1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). However, evoking two such memorable films only serves to underline the weaknesses in Motel Destino. The new film fails to develop the kind of strong drama that drove those works: the threat from Bambina which might well have been developed powerfully feels underused and the conflict with Elias which develops when he discovers Dayana’s affair with Heraldo leads into out- and-out melodrama. These late scenes emphasise that not even Xavier and Rocha, good as they are, can make us feel that the characters they are playing are real enough for us to care about them while the eventual fate of Elias feels totally contrived. Extra gay touches relating to Elias and also to the motel’s night porter (Yuri Yamamoto) exist mainly for their own sake and when the end credits are accompanied by the kind of flashing lights that audiences are warned about at the start of the film one regards that as characteristic of a film essentially superficial in character. Ultimately one feels that Motel Destino is just not really worthy of the huge talent that has gone into the making of it.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha, Fabio Assunção, Fabíola Líper, Renan Capivara, Yuri Yamamoto, David Santos, Bertrand de Courville, Isabela Catão, Jupyra Carvalho, Jan Moreira, Katiana Monteiro.
Dir Karim Aïnouz, Pro Janaina Bernardes, Fabiano Gullane, Caio Gullane, André Novis, Gabrielle Tana, Hélène Theodoly, Didar Domehri, Michael Weber and Viola Fügen, Screenplay Wislan Esmeraldo with Karim Aïnouz and Mauricio Zacharias, Ph Hélène Louvart, Art Dir Marcos Pedroso, Ed Nelly Quettier, Music Amine Bouhafa, Costumes Kika Lopes and Ananda Frazão.
Cinema Inflamável/Gullane/Maneki Films/The Match Factory/Globo Filmes/Telecine/Canal Brasil-Curzon.
115 mins. Brazil/France/Germany/UK/Australia/USA. 2024. UK Rel: 9 May 2025. Cert. 18.
