At this point in the pandemic, most of us have become acutely aware of the relative saving graces and limitations of technology as a tool for communication and authentic interaction. We’ve learned isolation can birth intense loneliness and depression. There is no substitute for human physical interaction, and there likely never will be. This truth wound up particularly if unintentionally hitting home in the new Brazilian sci-fi character drama The Pink Cloud.
Written in 2017 and filmed in 2019 before the rise of COVID, the movie is about an ominous, toxic pink cloud that shows up across the globe, killing anyone exposed to it within 10 seconds, requiring everyone to quarantine themselves inside indefinitely to save themselves. This emotionally effecting slow burn is an impressive, and unfortunately prescient feature film debut for writer/director Iuli Gerbase.
On the news, videos from across the world show people dropping dead. In Brazil, Giovana and Yago have just had a one night stand, when they hear sirens warning them to get inside immediately and close all the windows and doors. What begins as a lark between two near-strangers becomes a potentially permanent lockdown. Alone together for years, they experience their days very differently. Yago adapts and leans into it, feeling freed of societal expectations, whereas for Giovana, it is forced imprisonment. As time wears on, they become parents to Rui, though early in their captivity together, Giovana tells Yago she definitely doesn’t want children. Will the pink cloud ever release them, or will they be cut off, along with the rest of the world, to be confined until the day they die?
For the review in its entirety, go to AWFJ.org HERE.
