Motel Destino
Bathed in vivid colors, this equatorial noir follows a young man on the run after a job goes wrong. He hides out in a sex motel and begins a dangerous affair with the owner’s wife.
Please note the film does not have English dialogue or subtitles!
This intense and sensual love triangle combines crime and romance, reminiscent of classic noir films, as it tells the story of a young man who agrees to go on one last job with his friend. After being seduced by a con artist, the man oversleeps and misses the job. With gangsters on his tail, he flees and finds refuge in a motel, where he falls in love with the wife of the violent owner.
Karim Aïnouz, who successfully varied the melodrama in his Cannes winner The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (R&A 2019), proves that Brazilian filmmakers also master genre films. His film, which he calls an equatorial noir, is a wild hybrid of a dark crime film and the erotic Brazilian pornochanchada genre of the 1970s.
The film was born out of creative necessity and as a natural contrast to Aïnouz’s previous film, Firebrand (R&A 2024), in which people were chained to their costumes. Here, veiled bodies are liberated, and the film oozes with the lust of sweaty buttocks and tropical nights. Between Eros, Thanatos, and machine gun guards clad in speedos, the film tells a story of solidarity between people who find common ground in unexpected places.
Otto Kylmälä (translated by Moritz Müller)
Trailer
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