Quintal
2015 · 20m · Brazil
Directed by André Novais Oliveira
Genres: comedy, experimental, surrealism
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
A filmmaker casts his own elderly parents in an ordinary day at the family home, until a gust of wind and a dimensional portal break the routine.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A filmmaker weaponizes his own parents as unwitting actors in domestic banality, then casually ruptures reality with a portal — it's the kind of "wait, WHAT?" premise that sounds like a fever dream pitched at 3am, and Oliveira actually pulls it off without winking at the audience once.
Quintal situates itself in a lineage of metacinematic family portraiture and Surrealist intervention, though the tonal whiplash between quotidian observation and dimensional rupture feels more like aesthetic gesture than sustained formal argument.
The masterstroke here is how casually Oliveira lets the wind do the heavy lifting — that single atmospheric decision transforms the entire register from deadpan domestic study into genuine disorientation, proving you don't need budget to crack open a film's reality.
Reviews
Mas coisas pouco ortodoxas começam a acontecer. Depois de retratar um dia comum, em que marido e esposa assistem à TV e colocam em prática afazeres domésticos, do nada surge uma ventania que quase leva de arrasto a mulher e, logo depois, um portal dimensional que transporta o homem a outro lugar.