BLUE DESERT: Looks Aren't Everything

BLUE DESERT (DVD)

2013 / 92 min

FROM INDIEPIX

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Baffled😾

This Brazilian sci-fi film is visually striking, both naturally, with numerous scenes of red desert hills vividly contrasting a piercing blue sky, and through creative production design, depicting a future world of ethereal technology and aesthetic eye-candy.

However, looks aren’t everything.

Blue Desert is an utterly baffling film about a young man named Ele (Odilon Esteves), who’s tormented by his mundane daily existence and seeks to find transcendence. Also serving as the narrarator, Ele is repeatedly reminding us of his quest as he goes through life trying to empty his mind of societal clutter. He also has visions of an old man in the desert, whose goal is to paint it all blue. Hence the title, I guess, though the significance of these scenes are never clear…

…nor is anything else, really, including a lengthy and interminable sequence in a nightclub that we’re forced to endure twice. This is where he meets a mysterious woman, Alma (Maria Luisa Mendonça), who leads him through a perplexing conversation about love before making out with him. Then she disappears. Later, the same sequence is played again, only with their roles reversed. The entire time, an MC spouts pretentious gobbledegook about…well, your guess is as good as mine. Ele's best friend pops up now and again to verbally spare with him, but neither he nor Alma have any discernible relevance to the narrative.

Ele loses his beach ball.

I'm saying 'narrative' like I could actually follow it. I don’t have a problem with ambiguity, or even a filmmaker’s attempt to leave viewers completely perplexed. However, director Eder Santos should at least keep things interesting. Not only is Blue Desert confusing, it’s a colossal bore and moves at a snail’s pace. Characterization is almost non-existent and the only significant thing revealed about the main character is he likes to tinker with robots. It’s just a series of hallucinatory sequences strung together by indecipherable dialogue that sounds profound, but maybe someone smarter than me can explain what the hell any of it means. Speaking of which, some of that dialogue is apparently lifted directly from a book by Yoko Ono, which should tell you something. 

The film ends as it begins, in the barren desert beneath a blue sky. There’s no climax, no discernible resolution and absolutely no clarity. Ultimately, watching Blue Desert is like going on a date with someone who’s drop-dead gorgeous, but might be the dullest person you ever met.