The Brazilian director Gabe Klinger has built his career entirely in the United States. Based in Chicago, he directed the documentary Double Play: James Benning and Richard Linklater, Porto, and the short film Bergman’s Ghosts, a complementary work to Bergman Island, the Cannes film by Mia Hansen-Løve. For the first time in his career, Klinger returns to his home country. He directs Isabel, a drama about an unhappy sommelier, whose name is the title of the film, played by the director and TV host, Marina Person. Thus, the filmmaker takes us on a journey with a middle-aged woman whose dream is to open a wine bar in São Paulo, Brazil’s gastronomic capital, where all cuisines and tastes have a space.
Isabel (Marina Person) is an iconic sommelier, a pioneer among her colleagues who popularized the tasting and harmonizing of Brazilian natural wines in the haute cuisine in the city. However, while she observes her colleagues achieving success and recognition in their field, such as opening wine bars and publishing books, she feels stuck working as the central sommelier in a two-Michelin-star restaurant. Still, Isabel begins to bother herself with the venue’s chef, Tomasso (Marat Descartes), disdain for her main advocacy: the Brazilian natural wine, the one that does not utilize hormones for growing. Therefore, she invites her best friend and colleague, Nico (Caio Horowicz), to open a wine bar, Os Rejeitados (The Rejects), composed of those wines that Tomasso denied harmonizing. The film follows the dream of this woman as she navigates through the hardships of reaching her goal.
At first, the filmmaker establishes his central character as a trailblazer. Isabel is a role model for most of her peers; yet, she still feels like a failure. Then, Klinger portrays Isabel closely; the camera is always near her. The cinematography by Flora Dias, shot on 16mm film, imprints the texture of imperfection. In one of the first scenes, during a roundtable between sommeliers, they debate about what they search for in a wine. One of them emphasizes, I want perfection; people are not perfect, but wine may be. This dialogue represents perfectly the visual and narrative approach of the film. Isabel is a flawed character at her core. She is selfish in most moments, especially when it comes to her husband, Fred (Gregory Chastang), and Nico, choosing other people over their company, even if they need her presence. Consequently, she is not morally opposed to taking the bottles owned by Tomasso’s restaurant because she feels like she needs to rescue those bottles. Anything surrounding her passion for wine tasting has priority over her personal life, despite the effects on her relationships. Someone breaking a bottle is something terrible to her.
Tthe simple concept by Klinger is only successful due to his lead actor, Marina Person. She is a crucial artistic figure in Brazil, a former MTV Brasil VJ, a director (California), and a bearer of her late father Luiz Sérgio Person’s quintessential work in Brazilian cinema. The director acknowledges that by framing her character sitting on her sofa with the poster of his magnum opus São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima behind her. Person embodies a woman who ranges from the inspirational to overly ambitious, drifting away from those who love her, but convincing them to return and forgive her. The final scene of the project sums up the beautiful performance by her; a naturalistic approach to a woman who contains multitudes, a frustration from the failure, and a desire to keep drinking wine and celebrating. Hence, the 16mm cinematography has less texture and exposition. It is a visual metaphor in her journey through the fantastic adventure of opening a wine bar in São Paulo.
Despite its simple approach, Isabel feels like a sweet toast to failure. It is a celebration of the journey rather than the obsession with success over anything. Gabe Klinger concentrates on capturing the city of São Paulo through the experience of a dreamer, a woman eager not to stop in time, despite her flaws. Nevertheless, it all works due to the brilliance in Marina Person’s performance, who embodies this complex woman with elegance and complexity. At the end, the film is a realistic drama that encompasses the contrasts between individuals and their environments, how the social circles influence us to act in a certain way, and how the metropolitan city swallows our dreams and hopes. Gabe Klinger invites us to dive into the intricacies of a sommélier, still toasting our failures, and the sweet difficulties of life, which should also get a celebration after all.
Isabel recently played at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Berlinale site for the title.
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