Parque de Diversões (Amusement Park)

Film program, BR 2024, 72 min., bras. OV + engl. UT

By: Ricardo Alves Jr.

With “Parque de Diversos”, Ricardo Alves Jr. conjures up a queer punk rock cruising ballet on the screen. Largely without dialogue, people of the most diverse body and gender attributions meet in a nocturnal amusement park in Belo Horizonte and celebrate eroticism and lustful sexual encounters far (removed?) from any cruising clichés. The camera, always tracking and observing, immerses bodies in sensual colors and highlights contours rather than filming direct sexual acts. In combination with multi-layered soundscapes and rhythmic sound sequences that undulate to electronic beats, the film casts a hypnotic spell of lust, intimacy, light and shadow over the audience.

Kristian Petersen