Iuli Gerbase’s worryingly prescient debut feature sees two strangers trapped together in a never-ending quarantine. Ariel Kling reviews, fresh from its debut at Sundance Film Festival.
As a film that was astonishingly written in 2017 and filmed in 2019, with no intention to mirror the current state of the world, The Pink Cloud fits uniformly in a mid-pandemic film festival selection. I found my mouth agape and my unease unrelenting at so many moments and feelings that I experienced myself in the past year, in which I have kept myself more or less completely confined.
The Pink Cloud, Brazilian filmmaker Iuli Gerbase’s debut feature, turns what would be a picturesque sight of—you guessed it—a pink cloud into something deadly. From the moment a man drops dead while on a waterside dock, consumed by the incandescent gas slowly diffusing through the air, we are taught to associate the beautiful with the lethal: the presence of the Cloud signals a 10-second countdown for its victims death.
The main narrative of the film follows Giovana (Renata de Lélis) and Yado (Eduardo Mendonça) who, having just met at a club and engaged in what would have been a one night stand, are bound together in quarantine just as everyone else is with those in their immediate proximity—strangers in grocery stores, friends at sleepovers, and in the unfortunate case—those in solitude. Had the film truly been crafted in response to the pandemic, these cinematic conditions would have aptly constructed a foreboding case for why those who regularly break quarantine protocols should never again leave the house. However, for The Pink Cloud, leaving quarantine is not simply precarious or irreverent: it’s a death sentence.
Suddenly, the term ‘rose-tinted glasses’ adapts an inverse connotation with the film’s gorgeous pastel pink cinematography, as Gerbase conceives a world where desolation is the norm to which everyone must adhere. Our attention is directed primarily to the interior, as we are not thought to think of the mechanics of the cloud, nor of the wide-scale effects it may cause. Instead, she weaves together an intimate narrative of how a relationship—albeit, a new one—may suffocate under the weight of a near constant coexistence, and how we, as human beings, can only stave loneliness off for so long.
Once Iuli and Yado breach the initial acquisition to their New Normal, days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. Their relationship endures erratically, taking on different shapes and forms, with de Lélis and Mendonça delivering incredibly profound symbiotic performances. Naturally, the passage of time is nothing less than harrowing for an audience that may be shocked by the amount of subliminal parallels present between our world and theirs. Once the timescale tapers so far out that new generations are born into a world in which they have never encountered the outdoors, the tone declines even more so, as well as the desire to continue watching—almost all hope is dried into a crisp. Reality becomes a burden and mental escapism becomes a necessity, but the means with which to do so are understandably limited.
The Verdict
Nearing the end of the film, a silver lining emerges—or in this case, the vibrant palette of fuchsia, cotton candy, and blush metamorphosises into an electric green, and suddenly, it feels like promise. The mood picks up, true smiles grace the faces of the characters, and suddenly, the prospect of passing through the doorway becomes more and more tangible. Gerbase seizes the spike in energy to produce what can only be interpreted as hysteria within the framework of the film, and she plays on these intrinsic emotions, only to quell them with an even graver predicament than before, proving that loss is a much harder blow when it is directly coupled with hope.
Rating: 7/10
Words by Ariel Kling
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