‘The Blue Trail’ Review: Warm Self-Realization And Dystopian Portent Collide In A Road Movie With A Twist – Berlin Film Festival

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One of the many peculiarities of recent U.S. cultural trends is the “over-55 community,” gated havens for well-off retirees who embrace the idea of mono-generational living as an all-comforts interlude before Thanatos comes knocking.

In Gabriel Mascaro’s The Blue Trail, a gentle blend of delayed self-realization fantasy and dystopian portent, the cut-off age is 77, which in a way is progress (think of Logan’s Run) and the move is involuntary, but resistance is not futile.

Mascaro’s fourth feature can be considered a pair with his previous Divine Love, which also imagined a near-future controlled by a repressive state disguised as a caring Big Brother, but his latest is less deliciously elliptical than earlier films, privileging sensorial rewards that come from the natural world rather than the human body.

Set aglow by the earthy force of Denise Weinberg as Tereza, a woman determined not to be put away, The Blue Trail posits a river trip as a path to freedom, and its unpreachy warmth, despite occasional lags in momentum, offers refreshing rewards.