Dia­man­ti­no

A foot­baller runs across the pitch towards the goal at a packed out, cheer­ing sta­di­um. The world melts away as he approach­es to strike… and the pitch is filled with giant fluffy pup­pies sur­round­ed by a spark­ly pink mist.

This is just the open­ing scene of Dia­man­ti­no, an utter­ly bizarre yet charm­ing fan­ta­sy com­e­dy from direct­ing duo Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt. Mix­ing and bend­ing gen­res through­out, the film fol­lows the hand­some Dia­man­ti­no Mata­mouros (Car­loto Cot­ta), Portugal’s best foot­baller, as he embarks on a mis­sion to regain his glo­ry after an embar­rass­ing defeat at the World Cup finals. Manip­u­lat­ed by his wicked twin sis­ters (Anabela Mor­eira and Mar­gari­da Mor­eira), who seek to prof­it from their tal­ent­ed and doltish broth­er, Diamantino’s nar­row world­view is blown wide open, forc­ing him to encounter – among oth­er things – refugees, cloning, nation­al­ism and body modification.

The plot prompt­ly heads off in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent direc­tions at once, and though it may be bewil­der­ing at first, each sto­ry­line tie togeth­er sur­pris­ing­ly neat­ly. Every­one Dia­man­ti­no comes into con­tact with uses him for their own per­son­al agen­da, and the con­stant manip­u­la­tion of such a sweet, entire­ly naïve char­ac­ter is painful to watch – at one point, a TV host shows the star pic­tures of his recent­ly deceased father on live TV, mak­ing him cry.

This isn’t a film that rests on real­ism though. Each char­ac­ter has a fairy tale qual­i­ty, espe­cial­ly Diamantino’s sis­ters, who beat him and rarely speak a kind or qui­et word, mak­ing him the princess in need of res­cu­ing. It’s this harsh treat­ment of Dia­man­ti­no that makes the film so heart­felt and amus­ing – it’s easy to feel sor­ry for the obliv­i­ous star while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly laugh­ing at him as he makes piles of Nutel­la crêpes (his favourite food) for the refugee he adopts as his son.

The idea of a ful­ly grown man at the peak of phys­i­cal fit­ness, with a head so full of foot­ball that he has no real aware­ness or expe­ri­ence of adult life, makes for a hilar­i­ous char­ac­ter, and Cot­ta plays the part with a win­ning sen­si­tiv­i­ty. It also works to under­mine and ques­tion the idols of pop cul­ture that are pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic – what do we real­ly know about them, oth­er than what their pub­lic image tells us?

Also mem­o­rable is the film’s dis­tinct imagery. Com­pos­ite shots of a foot­ball sta­di­um fill­ing with ocean water, Dia­man­ti­no run­ning naked through a can­dy-coloured galaxy and, of course, those giant pup­pies bound­ing through pink mist, com­bine to cre­ate a strong visu­al tone that visu­alis­es the footballer’s new expe­ri­ences in a world he’s entire­ly unfa­mil­iar with.

Like its preened pro­tag­o­nist, the film appears a lit­tle scat­ter­brained at first, but Abrantes and Schmidt con­nect mul­ti­ple themes and char­ac­ter arcs to form an intel­li­gent, wit­ty, fan­tas­ti­cal take on celebri­ty cul­ture, pol­i­tics and mas­culin­i­ty. They have cre­at­ed a beau­ti­ful­ly made curio that cap­tures the heart and takes us on a bewil­der­ing, immense­ly fun ride.