Divino Amor (2019)

Directed by: Gabriel Mascaro | 100 minutes | drama, science fiction | Actors: Dira Paes, Julio Machado, Antonio Pastich

In eight years, Brazil will no longer be Carnival, but the evangelical festival ‘Amor Supremo’ will be the biggest party of the year. Every visitor to government buildings and shopping centers passes through an electronic gate, which immediately indicates the civil registry. With pregnant women, everyone can see how the light bar above the gate blinks: ‘fetus detected’.

It’s 2027 and family is above all else. The separation between church and state has more or less been abolished, and a government official is therefore at the same time a servant of God. At least that’s how she sees it in her thirties, who as a civil registry officer is responsible for matters such as marriage and divorce. Joana takes her job very seriously: 9 times out of 10 when couples get divorced, Joana gets them out with an appointment at a couples therapy group – where she herself can be found weekly with husband Danilo.

In the penetrating Brazilian film ‘Divino Amor’, the pious Joana – her dog’s name is Isaac – only wants one thing in exchange for all her devotion: a child. But that’s the one gift she doesn’t get from God, despite all efforts. Several times a week, Danilo has his balls radiated by a kind of fertility tanning bed where he has to hang upside down, Joana prays until her knuckles turn white, to no avail.

In the past, when not everything was political yet, you could still see a film as a surrealist imagination of the director, group sex therapy for example, who are in divorce, which is then called Heavenly Love (‘Divino Amor’). Okay, maybe that apolitical ‘in the past’ didn’t exist, but it is certain that it is now 2020, and you know: there is more to this and it has to do with politics. This is unadulterated social criticism. To a society that shows increasingly coercive conservative tendencies. To a government that interferes with people (especially women) right into the bedroom, to government leaders who want citizens to live as the Bible intended.

Director Gabriel Mascaro (from 2015’s ‘Neon Bull’) does not need to explicitly state that his film is a criticism of the extremely conservative course his country is taking. His vision of the future is not that crazy: it could just be that, in line with current developments, an evangelical regime will take over for a while.

Mascaro likes pink, white, and dreamy images. This, together with the special camerawork, gives the film a surreal feeling, and a very different viewing experience than if the story had been set in a gray favela, for example. Of course the pastel atmosphere is also a diversion from the dogmatic world behind all this heavenly happiness.

Because that is recognizable: in the past decades millions of people throughout Latin America have switched from ‘frivolous’ Roman Catholicism to the evangelical church that is as unctuous as it is business-like. White and pink flowers, but also a drive-through pastoral care, with or without an ATM. Pastels and eternal salvation, but also a ruthless door policy: without a husband you are not welcome. This, in combination with the technological resources of seven years from now, gives an uncanny glimpse into a possible future.

But we’re not looking at a “standard” dystopian universe. Mascaro does not write off the faith itself – in evangelical congregations the view that every believer has a direct line with God of his own – by enabling his protagonist to have ultimate trust. Something that is not given to everyone. Even if she ends up quite alone, Joanna’s surrender makes her a striking and unforgettable character in The Handmaid’s Tale times.