If you crave a gay-themed film full of brooding obsession, gloomy (and very well done) night photography, the occasional graphic sex scene, and METAPHORS so obvious even a high school film class could catch them, then this just might be your cup of tea. Howewver, if you are looking for a film that sustains its running time and subject, then you are out of luck.
To be fair, Portugese director João Pedro Rodrigues has made some daring choices here. Dialogue is minimal--this might as well be a silent film with sound effects. He's working one of the great themes--the boundary between dream and reality and the dangers of ignoring that boundary. There is the further theme of sexual oppression triggering further oppressions. And yes, there is more than a little bondage mixed in. (This is no 50s MGM musical.) It looks good--night photography, lots of back-light and black surfaces, either dull or glittering. Sergio (played by Ricardo Meneses, a garbageman in Lisbon, drifts further and further into his obsession with a hunky young swimmer (and Sergio is pretty hunky himself). While not obsessing, he drifts from one random sexual encounter to another. Finally, he goes off the beam completely (I won't go into all the details in case you decide to see it).
The problem is the same that so many self-consciously arty films, from Greed to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, share--their metaphors are too obvious (here, among others, it's human and animal behavior--Sergio's best relationship is with his dog and he lapses into canine behavior periodically) and they are just too long. O Fantasma would make a pretty good 40 minutes festival film--at 90 minutes, it just drags, particularly the ending with Sergio wandering interminably in a landfill in a rubber bondage suit. (Come to think of it, kind of an echo of the equally tedious final sequence of Greed.) I admit it--I really haven't the patience for films that scream out how ARTFUL they are and have little or nothing except style, attitude, and angst. Style and attitude--think Fred Astaire--can be a winning combination. Unfortunately, in spite of lashings of kink and plenty of existential hysteria, this is not a winning film. Basically, it's a bore.
To be fair, Portugese director João Pedro Rodrigues has made some daring choices here. Dialogue is minimal--this might as well be a silent film with sound effects. He's working one of the great themes--the boundary between dream and reality and the dangers of ignoring that boundary. There is the further theme of sexual oppression triggering further oppressions. And yes, there is more than a little bondage mixed in. (This is no 50s MGM musical.) It looks good--night photography, lots of back-light and black surfaces, either dull or glittering. Sergio (played by Ricardo Meneses, a garbageman in Lisbon, drifts further and further into his obsession with a hunky young swimmer (and Sergio is pretty hunky himself). While not obsessing, he drifts from one random sexual encounter to another. Finally, he goes off the beam completely (I won't go into all the details in case you decide to see it).
The problem is the same that so many self-consciously arty films, from Greed to The Unbearable Lightness of Being, share--their metaphors are too obvious (here, among others, it's human and animal behavior--Sergio's best relationship is with his dog and he lapses into canine behavior periodically) and they are just too long. O Fantasma would make a pretty good 40 minutes festival film--at 90 minutes, it just drags, particularly the ending with Sergio wandering interminably in a landfill in a rubber bondage suit. (Come to think of it, kind of an echo of the equally tedious final sequence of Greed.) I admit it--I really haven't the patience for films that scream out how ARTFUL they are and have little or nothing except style, attitude, and angst. Style and attitude--think Fred Astaire--can be a winning combination. Unfortunately, in spite of lashings of kink and plenty of existential hysteria, this is not a winning film. Basically, it's a bore.