Fogo Fatuo – first-look review

Leave it to João Pedro Rodrigues, the horni­est scamp in all of Por­tu­gal, to coax out the roil­ing cur­rents of homo­eroti­cism that have always raged beneath the sur­face of the fire­fight­ing profession.

It’s a pret­ty gay job: men with rip­pling, mus­cu­lar physiques sleep next to one anoth­er in tiny beds, bare all in steam-filled lock­er rooms, and slide down thick, hard poles on their way to sweaty acts of val­our. And in this queer musi­cal fan­ta­sia spurt­ing across six­ty-sev­en eco­nom­i­cal min­utes, these intre­pid heroes are per­mit­ted to drop the sub­text and give in to the bor­der­line porno­graph­ic vibe of any giv­en fire­house, here turned into a play­land of high-mind­ed plea­sure with­out shame.

Rodrigues is no gar­den-vari­ety smut-ped­dler, well aware that these unshy depic­tions of the male form will all be that much hot­ter with an intel­lec­tu­al foun­da­tion under­gird­ing it. Porn, a term fair­ly applied to a film in no small way ori­ent­ed around the spec­ta­cle of sex­u­al­i­ty, thrives on the ten­sion of dif­fer­ence, and there’s no dynam­ic rich­er than that between a spoiled lit­tle rich boy and the cal­lous-hand­ed work­er itch­ing to break him in.

After a flash-for­ward over­ture set on his deathbed in the year 2069 (nice), the brace-faced, curly-head­ed Alfre­do (Mau­ro Cos­ta) decides he wants to get a taste of the real world beyond the air­less palace in which his nobly-descend­ed fam­i­ly eats hilar­i­ous­ly aus­tere din­ners. Moti­vat­ed by a TV report about a spike in for­est infer­nos, he joins up with the local fire­fight­ing force and falls in with the beef­cake Afon­so (André Cabral), with whom his sex­u­al chem­istry will quick­ly approach super­no­va levels.

While the flir­ta­tion and even­tu­al car­nal rela­tion­ship between them leaves lit­tle to the imag­i­na­tion – we see every­thing short of ejac­u­late phys­i­cal­ly leap­ing out of the ure­thra, treat­ed to plen­ty of before and after – it’s made even more scorch­ing by the teased-out dis­par­i­ties of class and race. When Afon­so and Alfre­do con­sum­mate their attrac­tion with a vig­or­ous dou­ble hand­job, they work each oth­er into a froth with race-play dirty talk that fol­lows up on the African sculp­tures loom­ing over Alfredo’s fam­i­ly din­ner table. (“Insur­gent!” ​“Slave-dri­ver!” Sploosh!)

Rodrigues’ eru­dite sense of humor is the dis­tin­guish­ing fac­tor bring­ing to the Croisette what would oth­er­wise be sold at adult book­stores. He delights in mix­ing the osten­si­ble vul­gar­i­ty of nudi­ty with ref­er­ences and iconog­ra­phy of high cul­ture; in one stand­out scene, jock-strapped and ass-naked fire­fight­ers razz their new recruit by act­ing out tableaux of clas­si­cal art­works and quizzing him on the source of the homage.

Lat­er on, they click through a slideshow of dicks and com­pare each one to a spe­cif­ic type of for­est based on girth and pubic hair styling. Sex should be fun and just a tiny bit goofy, an intu­itive­ly under­stood real-life con­cept that nonethe­less eludes film­mak­ers all over the globe.

The essence of Rodrigues’ hor­mone-brained genius is no dif­fer­ent than that of Gene Kel­ly, hing­ing upon the abil­i­ty to trans­late the every­day mate­ri­als of the world around them into art that breaks out of and then through the hum­drum. Just as Kelly’s painter in An Amer­i­can in Paris could turn some­thing as quo­tid­i­an as a morn­ing rou­tine into a rous­ing dance num­ber, there’s noth­ing in Rodrigues’ arch dimen­sion that doesn’t bris­tle with erot­ic potential.

Fire­fight­ers may pose for cal­en­dars specif­i­cal­ly play­ing upon the sex­u­al ele­ment of the occu­pa­tion — these ones most cer­tain­ly do — but it seems like Rodrigues could find the frisk­i­ness in any­thing, any­where. Guid­ed equal­ly by his omniv­o­rous mind and his insa­tiable nethers, he offi­ci­ates a hap­py mar­riage of cere­bral com­men­tary and blind lust, putting the ​“anal” back in ​“analy­sis”.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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