At the beginning, it’s seemingly the age-old story of an older man trying to lure in a younger woman. He flirts and hints at his sexual desires. But this is just the surface of António e Catarina, directed by Cristina Hanes.
Catarina, who is really Cristina Hanes, met Augusto, an elderly man with a wrinkled face and white fly-away hair, during her cinema studies in Lisbon. The film is set in his dark, streetlight-lit apartment. Augusto refers to himself as António and Cristina as Catarina, and his playful but also mysterious nature is illuminated by Hanes’ close-up shots and dialogue with Augusto.
Hanes contrasts discussions of topics such as suicide and masturbation with scenes of them dancing with one another. It can be seen in his eyes and in his furrowed brows that he grapples with the relentless force of time.
There is a strange separation between Augusto and the rest of the world. Hanes highlights this by showing him repeatedly watching the street outside his window. There is a strip club outside his flat that Hanes shows through his window, depicting the underlying sexual innuendos, but also the removal from said sexual relations, in António e Catarina.
In one scene, Augusto sings and hints at his desire to be young again, thinking maybe Hanes would be his love interest. But he returns to the depressing reality that time has moved him forward and Hanes is very behind, in terms of age.
Hanes very honestly approaches the fact that death is a dark reality for Augusto. The subdued lighting and tension between the two create a truly riveting film about desire and relationships between men and women, with the added variable of time.
Hanes says that she immediately knew she wanted to make a film about him from the moment she met him. She said she was drawn to his isolation and the fact that he lived in a flat with other men he hardly knew.
“I think it would be touching for me if people would reflect on filmic relationships because this is the thing that I wanted to explore and to reflect on — the fact that sometimes, it’s so much easier to share with strangers some intimate things that is harder to share with the ones that are closer to you,” Hanes said. “In front of a stranger, we always have, kind of, opportunity to reinvent ourselves, and sometimes relationships come in the most unexpected ways with unexpected people that can be 45 years older than you.”
This film is also playing at 12:15 p.m. on March 3 at Willy Wilson at Ragtag and at 3 p.m. on March 4 at Forrest Theater.
