The Uruguayan director Lucia Garibaldi presents her sophomore feature, Un Futuro Brillante (A Bright Future), at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Her first film, Los Tiburones (The Sharks), premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Consequently, her subsequent work became a highly anticipated title on the festival circuit, and it is finally premiering now at Tribeca. In the film, the director envisions a future where people live without animals because they bring harm, such as the ants, and the environment hits a low point. People live in complexes, and young people ranging from eighteen to twenty-five are subject to IQ tests. Those considered above average are accepted into the adaptation round, leading them to move north and work on the nation’s progress in their respective departments.
We follow Elisa (Martina Passeggi), a young woman who is the first in her neighborhood to pass the tests and get an invitation to migrate north. She has an above-average IQ and fixes animal speakers, which reproduce their sounds. She wants to raise money to help her mother, Nélida (Soledad Pelayo), buy a spot to the north through an auction. Suddenly, Elisa has no interest in going north anymore; still, she works with Leonor (Sofia Gala Castiglione), her neighbor, to gather money to buy her mother’s spot in the North through kinky meetings.
In Un Futuro Brillante, the director uses a dystopian world to imagine the limits of relationships and late capitalism. The neighborhood is their known portion of the world. It all boils down to that perimeter. The far south region is a savage location, and people cannot access it unless they have permission from the authorities. Garibaldi establishes the Northern part as a progressive land where talented individuals fully develop themselves and earn what they truly deserve. In an observation, the director sketches a commentary on how the global South positions itself from a worldwide perspective. The so-called third-world countries look up to the northern hemisphere as the land of prosperity and intellectual development. The collective agreement to it does not result from an analysis of truth, but the centuries of colonialism and soft power propaganda that shaped the South as inferior to the European and North American continents.
Therefore, the director shapes her universe as a place where a superior force works upon them. However, we never get to meet it, we never know if there is a government leader, a dictatorial force or communion force. It is a subtextual construction of the oppressors and elites exploring the most prominent portions of society. Therefore, individual liberties and pleasures are not a usual element of their daily lives. A bottle of wine, even if it is pure vinegar when they open it, is a symbol of smuggling small portions of beverages and foods that please them. Hence, sexual satisfaction shocks the community, which applies to Leonor, known in the block as the ‘cunnilingus lady’. Any demonstration of delight rather than admiration of intelligence and the desire to socially move has no space in that culture. Besides a strict personality in the first scenes, Elisa gets to engage socially, flirt, and explore herself when she exchanges experiences with Leonor. It is a mentoring process between a potential child and a poorly spoken neighbor.
Hence, Martina Passeggi’s performance is essential to the blossoming of this intricate character. She is the brilliant child of the block, and she must follow what society imposes on her, which is moving out and working for the department. The actor delivers a vivid interpretation of this introverted and correct girl who needs to step up to the most crucial decision of her life. Furthermore, the chemistry between Passegi and Sofia Gala Castiglione proposes a clash between contradictory personalities. It even provides moments of absurdity, such as the kink meeting where people pay to smell Elisa and her young body. The neighbor is an odd and disrespectful woman to that community, but Elisa needs her mentoring and help in raising money. The construction of the lead character borrows from a coming-of-age narrative structure. However, this is not a typical world, and her discoveries resonate as subverting the status quo of a sterilized society afraid of animals, the South, and its attitude.
Ultimately, in her sophomore effort, Lucia Garibaldi crafts an equally deliciously absurd and intriguing science fiction film of the near future. She discusses the construction of society in a late capitalist reality, the loss of the simple things of life, and the distancing of human beings. Alongside a bright performance by Martina Passeggi, the director draws a portrayal of dystopia, human separation based on biological merit, and a constant search for productivity and progress. In the end, Garibaldi reflects on the scary present to imagine an even more dreadful future disguised as brilliant.
A Bright Future (Un Futuro Brillante) recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Tribeca site for the title.
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