Guaruja, digital film
Gisela Domschke created a digital feature film, which was co-directed with the photographer Marcelo Krasilcic.
Synopsis: ‘Guarujá ‘ was a movie that explored the gaze, as a mode of viewing reflecting a gendered code of desire. A couple were interpreted by 2 actresses and 2 actors of different ages, who alternated between the 2 roles throughout the movie. The location took place in the interior of an apartment in the coast of Sao Paulo.
Year of Production: 2003-04
Country of Production: Brazil
Directors: Gisela Domschke (London) and Marcelo Krasilcic (NY)
Special Participation: Paulo César Pereio
Drawing on the concept of fantasy as a staging of desire, the film explores the structure of a more mobile gaze. Each setting represents a mise-en-scene of desire. Engaged in the activity of fantasizing, the sexual identification of the subject is not fixed, and can adopt multiple positions across gender, time and space. Paulo calls Angela and asks ‘How is Berlin’. Angela, who is actually in the next room, looks like a woman in her 40’s. Next scene she might be a 28 years old man. He is leaving her. She jokes about it. The film is a ballet of desire, which could be set in an afternoon or an entire life. The spectator is let free to assume shifting modes of identification.
Guarujá may be seen to link with postmodern arguments concerning the contingency and fluidity of social identities in contemporary culture. In this film, the derritorialization of identity is “double coded” in both, the alienation of the subjects as well as in the estrangement between the self and the real world. Paulo takes a bath. Angela is sitting next to him in the bathroom and read the news. It is the day after the inauguration of President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. “Yes let’s change, change with courage and caution”, announces the headlines.
Guarujá counts with the special participation of of Brazilian “Cinema Marginal” film star Paulo Cesar Pereio. The raise of “Cinema Marginal” in the late 60’s may be linked to the failure of welfare reform projects, as a result of the military coup d’etat in 1964. In the core of this cinema is a strong sense of rupture, sarcasm and irony. Now, the cultural and political configuration is diverse. In the globalisation era, Workers Party President Lula has recently declared in one of his speeches: ''When I was younger, being anti-American meant you didn't drink Coca-Cola,'' he reflected. ''But now that I am more mature, I've discovered that there's nothing better than drinking an ice-cold Coke when you wake up early in the morning." The freedom of digital production might, nevertheless, enable the expression of yet other daring forms.
Paulo calls Angela and asks ‘How is Berlin’.