27/11/2024 - Brazilian director Sacha Amaral’s debut feature is a vibrant portrait of a young man who desires nothing and everything at the same time

Antonio (Max Suen), the protagonist of Sacha Amaral’s debut film, The Pleasure Is Mine [+see also:
interview: Sacha Amaral
film profile], is a charming 20-year-old, the kind you’d be drawn to immediately: his face, the way he moves, the genuine curiosity he approaches one’s words and body with, all contribute to his allure. Moreso, the magnetism of this character is so entwined with a juvenile kind of frivolity that he can easily personify youth, as such. After making many successful shorts, Amaral, who comes from Brazil but lives in Buenos Aires, has made the subject of his first feature a young man whose desires remain obscure to him. Enigma and libido are two words that define The Pleasure Is Mine, shown in the Gijón Film Festival’s Retueyos section.

Perhaps the most attractive thing about Antonio is that he seems to wear his heart on his sleeve. Sure, he sleeps in many beds and always gives a different answer to the question, “What do you do?”, but his little white lies don’t negate his authentic presence. Sometimes goofy, often very spiky, Antonio has a conflicting relationship with everyone close to him: his mother, Viviana (Katja Alemann), whom he still lives with; his close friend Lu (Sofía Palomino), who lends him cash; and his dealer pal who lets him sell a bit as well. In addition, his casual lovers – men and women, younger and older – gravitate around him like the planets circle around the Sun. But Antonio often finds their admiration boring, and his ego seeks the dynamics of a constant push and pull to assert itself.

Tension is like air to Antonio, so the casual, app-sourced sex he has doesn’t seem like a release, really. In the film, we see him exchange different degrees of intimacy with men and women, sometimes twice his age, but the desires he enacts are always tainted with the same eagerness to discover something; as to what that is, he still doesn’t know. Max Suen embodies the character with sleekness and mystery in equal measure, imbuing him with the aura of a young wanderer who doesn’t simply want (things or people), but ferociously desires. Antonio also steals, lies, and even manipulates people a bit to get his way, but hey, that’s what you do when you live according to the pleasure principle.

Thankfully, there are no Freudian mentions in this film, nor any character psychology tips to look out for. Amaral is a sparse director who prefers to let the scene breathe and the characters take up space: as a writer, he has done a marvellous job of putting their ambiguities to paper already. That’s probably why The Pleasure Is Mine feels particularly alive and beating to its own rhythm, a beautifully crafted wide-screen wonder with a central character you cannot help but kind of love, even when you kind of hate him – just like everyone else he meets.

The Pleasure Is Mine was produced by Gentil Cine (Argentina), Paris-based Protest Studio, Quadrophenia Films (Brazil) and Hipo Films (Brazil). German company Patra Spanou Film handles the film’s worldwide sales.