Cannes: ’Will-O’-the-Wisp,’ From Joao Pedro Rodrigues: Dancing Firemen, Burnt Forests, Homoeroticism and Sly Humor

variety.com:

Martin Dale ContributorPortuguese helmer João Pedro Rodrigues returned to Cannes this year with his new film “Will-O’-the-Wisp” (“Fogo Fátuo”), which screened in Directors’ Fortnight and is his first feature since the well-received 2016 madcap journey of self-discovery, “The Ornithologist.”The film begins in 2069, with Prince Alfredo on his deathbed, who begins to reminisce about his childhood spent in the King’s Pine Grove in Leiria, near Lisbon, which was devastated in the 2017 forest fires.

Behind him we see Jose Conrado Roza’s enigmatic 18th century painting “The Wedding Masquerade,” featuring exotic, dwarfish figures with black skin and a character suffering from a skin disease, at a wedding ceremony.

After the forest fire the young Alfredo decides to join the volunteer fire brigade where he falls in love with a Black fireman, Afonso.

Rodrigues calls the film a “musical fantasy.” The homoerotically charged film establishes metaphorical links between the tall erect pine trees and the male member, including a love scene between Alfredo and Afonso in the ashes of the burnt forest.