Spritz and fizzle

São Paulo, 21st century: a beautiful modern subway system haunted by Martín (Felipe Camargo), a sturdy man in a tweed jacket with a beard and bushy hair and a soft inquiring face. There's something both desolate and eager about him, mellow yet needy. We see him sometimes through a transparent subway map in a station as if this diagram is his future, his brain; he has a big paper version tacked on the wall of his cheap apartment. It's also his bible and his horoscope, the world of his dashed hopes. In his pocket is a little journal book with a marbleized cover where he jots down his random game plans. He follows women he sees in the subway cars. He gives them a name, and he bets on which stop they'll get off at and where they'll go from there. If their path corresponds to his pre-jotted pattern, maybe they're his Laura, his Beatrice. At night, he's a pianist who plays in a club wearing a satin-breasted jacket.

Director Gervitz based Jogo Subterrâneo on a Julio Cortázar story whose meandering lonely-guy plot he may have somewhat over-expanded; the premise is intriguing if ambiguous, but there is a loss of momentum in its development. To begin with, this Underground Game doesn't seem like one anyone can win. Gervitz was assisted by the likes of Jorge Duran though, the wordsmith who penned Pixote and Kiss of the Spider Woman, so you can't say the dialogue doesn't move. Pacing is very brisk and energetic at first, and we hold on for a good while before we start to lose some of our interest. The first half hour or so is an indeterminate but compulsively watchable chase seen through the nervous but unflagging camera of Lauro Escorel. Music intriguingly enters the mix, worked in through the pianist hero and a happy collaboration with Gervitz's best buddy composer Luiz Enrique Xavier. There's much to enjoy here, till Martín's pursuit leads to too many irrelevant details.

Others come and go, but three women emerge and linger through underground encounters. There's the sympathetic tattoo artist, Tania (Daniela Escobar) with her autistic daughter Victória (Thavyne Ferrari). There's a blind writer named Laura (Julia Lemmertz) whom Martín meets periodically -- in the subway, of course. She has her own game, eavesdropping on conversations and picking up ideas for her fiction. Martín confides in her -- elliptically. He violates his game to pursue a pale, heavily made up woman in red whom he follows outside the subway, even when she doesn't follow the outline he's sketched in his notebook. She's the confused and secretive Ana (Maria Luisa Mendonca) who Martín seems to sense is bad news, but keeps coming back to.

The trouble is it's hard to tell a minor character from a major one. Tania is nice and likes Martín, Laura is bright and stable. Why does our hero insist on pursuing the neurotic, affectless Ana? Some of the details of her life that finally emerge seem obtrusive, and in the way they're presented, they violate the previously exclusive focus on the hero's point of view. The feel-good ending may resolve some of our questions, but it looks awfully familiar. Too bad, because the film has an appealing look, pace, and sound and its hot/cold urban setting is a pleasant surprise coming from the land of boy gangsters and spider women.

Underground Game has shown at a number of film festivals (Bruges, San Sebastian, Palm Springs, Havana, DC) and now is at San Francisco's.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Apr 30 / 9:15 / Kabuki / UNDE30K
Wed, May 03 / 6:00 / Kabuki / UNDE03K

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.