Direction: Gabriel Mascaro
Country: Brazil
Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro deserved all the attention he got with his raw feature debut, Neon Bull (2015). Now, he returns with Divine Love, shifting his observant gaze from the Northeastern Brazilian rodeo to a sort of meditation on the limits of faith set in a near future.
The year is 2027 and the story, told by the voice of a child, focuses on Joana (Dira Paes), a devotee of Jesus Christ who works in the divorce department of a renewed Brazilian state, whose most important event is now the Party of Supreme Love instead of the Carnival. She and her infertile husband, Danilo (Julio Machado), are members of the support religious group Divine Love, which helps divorcing couples reconcile through prayers, rituals and partner swapping. Their motto is “Love doesn’t betray. Love shares.”
Joana is very happy with her work but lives dissatisfied with the impossibility of having a child. With the help of a Pastor (Emílio de Mello) who works in a public drive-through, and strengthened with her tremendous faith, Joana doesn’t lose hope. Actually, miracles can happen, but they have a consequence here.
The give and take is well patented within a film that is at once straightforward and cynical. Maybe, the story spends too much time preaching, but Mascaro holds tight to his credo, aiming at the Brazilian conservatism with irony. Even with the two leads playing a perfect fiddle to one another, one finds some unnecessary repetition. Moreover, the fact that one is able to get the point soon before the film’s ending hampers Divine Love from stepping up. It's a tolerable effort, though, from a filmmaker with potentiality.
