Texture. That was the first thing I noticed in Praia Formosa from filmmaker Julia De Simone, was how richly textured the film. The entire frame was layered in texture, from the walls to the costumes, and even the sound design. It was a feast that drew you in and then challenged you to engage with the many layers. At times, it could even overwhelm, particularly, the soundscape, as there would be layers of sound added that didn’t always match the action on the screen, but spoke to the emotional undercurrents.
Like with many films, I went in blind, not having even read a summary, and as a result, at first, I thought it was a narrative feature. At about the mid-point, I realized that it is more accurately a documentary done in a super creative way that lets the re-enactment seep into the present day, and because the film deals with slavery, that seeping, or rippling into the present, is very apt.
A little bit before I realized Praia Formosa was a documentary, or a hybrid documentary, there was this fabulous bit of dancing, of movement. Muanza, the protagonist, was still dressed like she was from the 19thcentury but she was dancing in the present-day street. It was surreal and powerful, and if she hadn’t started dancing and had just walked down the street, I probably would’ve thought it was an M. Night Shyamalan twist ala The Village. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it if it had gone a straight narrative route, even one heightened like that, when the film reached Mãe Celina de Xangô, a real-life archeologist who found and recognized African objects in the Cais do Valongo excavations, after already presenting more re-enacted stories of people telling what happened to them in letters of record, it was a much more interesting route.
Back to set design, in the primary set as we mostly see it, it’s rundown. Muanza for much of the film is stuck in this crumbling house with her lone captor, a woman who can’t or won’t see the ruin around her. The use of tearing away doors and walls to get to little items or even, now I realize upon reflection, a child from the distant future (but not the present), was a great active device. It furthered the destruction of the house, sometimes it showed her trying to flee, and they were great for creating “doors” which facilitated nice scene cuts.
I’m watching this film the same week that Colman Domingo got nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Rustin. I bring this up because it wasn’t until it was pointed out to some congratulating America Ferrara for being a Latin American nominee that Colman was also Latin American that they added his name to their congratulations. Colorism is still a very big issue in media; In the Heights received a lot of backlash for its lack of Afro-Latino actors. Films, narratives, documentaries, or hybrids like Praia Formosa are important because they force people to acknowledge colonialism happened not just in North America but elsewhere, and how we can’t just brush over and forget that part of our history, because it is what formed the countries we are today and the people who make up the countries – all the people.
Praia Formosa is the middle entry in a trilogy of films that began with the short film O porto (2014). It had its World Premiere at the 53rd International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
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Paris Noble