
Set on the beaches and streets of Provincetown, writer-director Marco Calvani’s debut feature, High Tide, is a heartfelt and heartfelt portrayal of a young undocumented gay Brazilian Lourenço (Marco Pigossi) who is counting his bland last days on the town as he prepares to move out to an unknown destination. The film is rife with the specifics associated with a particular subculture, that of the affluent gay or lesbian citizens of Provincetown and the younger queer population who during summer months rent their places, and the movie’s pictorial narrative is connected with the homoerotic pantheon comprising among others Claire Denis’ Beau Travail and Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight. But the movie does manage to capture a more common ache of feeling forlorn, having experienced something so intimate in a place you’d thought would remain foreign only to get a dose of reality when you peek your head at the calendar. It seems you possess that floating anxiety of simply understanding that an event, rather fundamental indeed, occurred in your life. But it is unclear what it was, and even, how you can utilize that information.
To my inner person’s surprise, the film begins so well with a deep flash forward when Lourenco decides to strip off all clothes and jump into the sea. When he is floating in the water it confirms everything that could be said about him, only that he is the man who is floating in the ocean of possibilities and unanchored in a way. The movie has several scenes that evoke sympathy for Loureanco, notably the one showing the deep sadness of the immigrant. Young people who come to Provincetown and Loureanco probably have a similar feeling of being cut off from their regular lives at least for some time. The cast includes Mya Taylor, the ‘Tangerine’ actor who plays Crystal, the drug-filled matron of the group, and Maurice, a tall handsome black who is surrounded by white people and feels out of context just like Lourenço feels cool but very lonely. When they meet they get attracted to its raw primal heat but they end up mounting because of nerves. Their lovemaking is passionate and shot in a classy manner but however naked and brief, soft-focus as prose strives towards poetry.
Oscar Ignacio Jiménez, who takes advantage of the beautiful beaches without allowing them too much attention, is credited with the beautiful cinematography. ‘High Tide’ has very nice, sweet, almost meditative qualities, particularly when it focuses on Maurice and Lourenço, which is most of the time. Their bonds are quite believable and touching but the obligatory third-act separation feels scripted even if Bland does the hurtful scene quite well, you can sense Maurice soaking up his damage only to move deeper into himself. Additionally, a great deal of Maurice’s speech is referred to as culture-neutral, meaning it is often strange, and clunky delivered. However, his wonderful insult, “Of course when you’re about to leave, you finally find a reason to stay” is one for the poster and should be used in the film’s marketing.
There are several memorable supporting performances, and the film includes just enough of the periphery characters to allow the viewer to imagine what happens to them when Lourenço isn’t around. One strong presence is Bill Irwin, who plays Steve an old man who moved to Provincetown at the height of the AIDS crisis to either ‘heal or die’, and grief-stricken after the loss of his partner he now rents his guest house to summer workers, including Lourenço who works as a cleaner and handyman. Seán Mahon is suitably cast in the role of Bob, one of Lauro’s short-tempered employers, who is somewhat rude, uses bad language and sometimes loses their temper easily. His ex-wife also plays a factor in his anger, Miriam (Marisa Tomei) the wife of a former supper, falls in love with a woman and thus leaves him. It is understandable that Miriam gets Lourenço as she was indeed prepared to shake her life in pursuit of a feeling but indeed Lauro isn’t at that stage yet.
“You are going to break a heart on this journey but perhaps it’s yours that gets opened,” she says to him before adding, “But it is always worth it.” (In the other film starring Tomei which was released this week named Brothers, she plays a woman who fantasizes over a man she has never met before a man who is in prison for being a thief. She’s definitely effective in both roles. Someone should give her another leading role.)
Pigossi has a star quality where most people just do their thing when it comes to acting in front of a camera which is to simply make people feel what the character is feeling and that the scene will work out regardless of how much he ‘puts in.’
On occasion, he playfully allows himself to be completely overpowered and surrounded by other, more flamboyant characters in a specific part of the story (most of whom, it’s easy to believe, are not anywhere near as witlessly charming as they like to think they are, and are actually just overacting as “characters”; this is not an insult to the performers, who are wonderful, but a praise to the script). It is in such scenes that the viewer’s attention always returns to Lourenço struggling to express his emotions in a more or less tortured stillness face, attempting to resolve unfinished and often distracting internal conflicts without success.
A slow zoom-in of a more quiet and pensive Lourenço sitting center frame at a dinner table cut-in, with Steve, and Nathan’s guest, too eager a lawyer Todd (Bryan Batt, from Mad Men) whom they thought would be able to sort out the protagonists’ immigration problems and make him stay in America. There’s a lot going on in there, and Timothy’s room was constructed at both narrative and scenographic/illustrative/helping levels But there is also an understated sadness that this kind of person could determine the very essence of Lourenco’s existence with people in American society and insightful portrayal of the anthropologically precise kinds of people who wouldn’t naturally consider themselves types. Everything is brought together through Pigossi’s face which makes this shot a lot more bleak and adds a sense of authority to the more documentary aspects of the sequence.
“High Tide” is rather unstructured and possesses the associative quality of a collection of fragmented stories instead of a captivating narrative revolving around a single plot: a loosely structured story that never really escapes its setting. To be fair, this sense of deficiency is to be expected from the debut features of directors which are basically expositions of styles and concerns. The filmmakers succeed with an implicit, quite daring promise that the voice is valuable enough to carry on through several films. In this particular case, that’s absolutely the case.
For More Movies Like High Tide (2024) visit on 123Movies