Summary
Gabriel Mascaro imagines a future Brazil where control is repackaged as care. Lush and lyrical, it meanders meaningfully.
There have been a number of well-received films in recent years, most notably Here I Am and The Secret Agent, examining the tight grip of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Yet it’s to the future that Neon Bull director Gabriel Mascaro turns in THE BLUE TRAIL (O Último Azul), envisioning a world in which an oppressive system is simply accepted as a daily fact of life—marketed, even, as a social good.
Sometime in an unspecified future, government propaganda reminds citizens that “O futuro é para todos” (“The future is for everyone”). Now 77 years old, Tereza (Denise Weinberg) is declared part of the “national living heritage” and scheduled to be relocated to a state-run colony. But Tereza isn’t finished living. Determined to fulfil her dream of flying a plane, and undeterred by bureaucratic rules requiring her daughter’s approval, she hires a boat from skipper Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro) and sets off to find her wings.
From the moment I first saw a still from Mascaro’s film (pictured above), I was captivated by the world his character inhabited. Mascaro immerses us in this vividly imagined future, with cinematographer Guillermo Garza capturing the Brazilian Amazon in rich, otherworldly hues. Tereza may be racing the clock, but the film is not. Mascaro and co-writer Tibério Azul let the story unfold at a meditative pace as our hero drifts upriver.
Part of the film’s dreamlike atmosphere comes from the titular blue trail: the residue of a native snail said to induce visions. In the film’s second half, Tereza bonds with a fellow traveller, a similarly aged boat captain who has bought her own freedom. Mascaro threads these ideas together in the neon haze of a casino that may or may not offer Tereza a final path forward. It’s here that the slow build begins to falter. The final act feels rushed, slightly fracturing the spell Mascaro has cast over the preceding hour.
THE BLUE TRAIL is a quietly potent meditation on ageism and the insidious reach of government control, steeped in the lived reality of a country with a very real history of authoritarianism. It doesn’t offer clear answers, leaving us instead with a lingering sense of unease. But it’s a beautiful, haunting journey getting there.
2025 | Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Chile | DIRECTOR: Gabriel Mascaro | WRITERS: Gabriel Mascaro, Tibério Azul | CAST: Denise Weinberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Miriam Socarrás | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Palace Films (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 86 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)
