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| Inacio shores up his masculinity in Gabriela Amaral Almeida's taut thriller Friendly Beast/O Animal Cordial (2017) |
Restaurants are strange places to work, full of delicate egos, macho kitchens, beleaguered waitstaff putting up with entitled customers, and crazy, penny-pinching owners who treat their workers like slaves. So Gabriela Amaral Almeida's marvelous Brazilian Horror film
Friendly Beast (2017) gloriously reveals when the rather typical state of restaurant work goes horribly off the rails. While I still have quite a few films left to screen at the 2017 Fantasia Film Festival,
Friendly Beast is the most overtly feminist film that I've watched so far, and reveals an exciting new female voice entering the horror scene.
The film takes place in a small Brazilian restaurant, where Sara (Luciano Pais) works for the narcissistic and horribly insecure Inacio (
Murilo Benício)--whom the director admits is a rather well-known soap opera actor in Brazil, taking on a decidedly
different role. Inacio badgers his kitchen staff, including the queer POC chef Djair (
Irandhir Santos), even taking credit for his culinary genius. Sara waits on jerkoffs like Veronica and Bruno, entitled rich, white folk who expect the staff of color to cater to their every whim. Things go decidedly pear-shaped at the end of the night when a couple of young thugs decide to rob the place. Alas, this robbery isn't the restaurant's first, and Inacio is fully prepared, gun in hand, to prove that he's a "real man" able to fend off any and all threats. He's also a cauldron of bubbling rage waiting to boil over, and when he does, rational behavior goes out the window. The formerly avuncular owner becomes quite a different beast altogether, and his delicate ego makes everyone a target for his wrath.
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| Djair and one of the robbers, wait, bound and helpless, for their fate to be decided |
Much of the tension of the film comes from the marvelously intimate set, as the locations are limited to the restaurant's tight spaces--the dining room, kitchen, and bathroom. Amaral Almeida masterfully employs camerawork and sound to amplify the claustrophobic nature of the place, and even when some characters are not present for the rather gory violence underway, they cannot escape its presence, as it lurks right outside the door. Her critique of masculinity and its perils is really smart, as she reveals through Inacio's unraveling that gender is a struggle for everyone across the spectrum of identities, and that there is no greater horror than trying to live up to certain gender ideals.
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| Sara's transformation over the course of the film is the film's most brilliant (and feminist) facet |
The true revelation of this film is Luciana Paes' fearless performance as Sara, a character who goes through so many surprising and exhilarating changes as the action evolves. Initially, Sara is a resentful worker forced to stay late due to some last minute customers. Her fascination with the blond, entitled Veronica takes a significant turn, suggesting that one should be a lot more respectful of their fu**ing server, okay? The film implies that she has a curious relationship to her boss, one that borders on a crush (and what the kitchen staff sees as "ass kissing"). That relationship also changes by degree, as tidbits of info are supplied to shift our understanding of Sara as a female character. The events that unfold appear to liberate her in some ways, perhaps unveiling the beating heart of her primal energy just waiting for the moment of release. She combines the tropes of "final girl" and monster in truly inventive ways, and the ending of this film is a doozy--immensely satisfying. This film also has a sex scene that is so astonishing, it will BLOW YOUR MIND. I cannot get those images out of my head, nor do I want to!
As a debut feature,
Friendly Beast is an incredibly accomplished and riveting piece of work. It explores the intersections of race, class, and gender in an intelligent and sophisticated fashion while still being a bloody gory work that lies comfortably within the horror genre. The film raises questions about women's desires, and the pressures on them to behave "appropriately," creating a feminist work that challenges many of the genre's common understandings of what role women
should play. I recommend it highly, and eagerly await Amaral Almeida's next film.
