August Winds (Gabriel Mascaro, 2014): Brazil

Reviewed by Furkan Altunkaynak. Viewed at AFI Fest 2014.

August Winds is story of Shirley (Dandara de Morais) and Jeison (Geova Manoel Dos Santos) directed by Gabriel Marcaro. The couple from a small village of Brazil finds out that there is end for life and being forgotten.

It is really inspiring work that a documentary filmmaker put together a future film like this one. Most of the shots are not expectedly prepared and caught from the real moments of life like in a documentary. Assuming getting the unexpected shots beautifully in the moment comes from the profession background of documentary. Cinematography is good and ideal like nicely framed pictures and tracking shots. However the quality of the movie was low which made it hard to feel the beautiful shots that shown. Not much information given for characters like object to understand who they are. I find myself trying to figure and empathize the characters to gain better understanding. Which can be the attention of the director’s to make the audience feel like they are watching a self-explanatory silence documentary kind future movie. For me, It felt more like bunch of documentary film makers get together to see can they put together a future film by the shots they usually take.