Além das Aparências
2025 · 21m · Brasil
Directed by Divino B'Atista
Genres: drama, LGBTQ+, romance
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
A married man falls in love with another man who returns his feelings, but he cannot bring himself to leave his wife and keeps up the appearance of a conventional life.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The setup screams conventional heartbreak—man caught between two loves—but B'Atista refuses the catharsis we're trained to expect; instead he lets the protagonist live in the discomfort, which is either profound or a cop-out, and I'm genuinely unsure which.
A formally precise study in emotional paralysis that situates itself squarely in the lineage of contemplative relationship cinema—the 21-minute duration is weaponized restraint, each compositional choice earning its melancholy without sentiment.
The film's core tension lives in what B'Atista doesn't show us: the editing around the wife's knowledge, or lack thereof, becomes the film's beating heart, and that structural economy makes a modest premise cut deep.