Alma Bandida

Love in a Brazilian town on the edge of the jungle: he loves her, and she says she loves him too. She deserves a gift, one that makes an impression. He wants to marry her and can’t wait any longer. So he heads out into the jungle armed with a pickaxe, since there is no app to find what he has in mind for her: gemstones. Gemstones are the path to freedom, his way out of the dreary small town – with her at his side. Director Marco Antônio Pereira stages this seemingly archetypical search for happiness with an exceedingly light touch and contemporary means: Grand Theft Auto, music video aesthetics and documentary fiction. When, at the end of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Vincenzo Bellini’s ‘A te, o cara’ rings out and desire springs eternal, Pereira is just getting warmed up: happiness takes time and the glimmer of gemstones is reserved for a precious few. (Berlinale)