Fish Dreams

In his feature debut Mikhanovsky, who was born in Russia and lives in the United States, tells the story of a young Brazilian fisherman. Jusce (17) dives for crab to earn money to buy a boat of his own. His future is in the coastal village where he lives and dives and nowhere else. But he has a second dream. He also hopes for the pretty Ana, who lives with her child and her mother and watches lots of soaps on TV to escape from village life. When Rogério, an ambitious young man, returns from the city with commercial and big city plans for the small village, Jusce’s chances take a turn for the worse.
The tensions that ensue are played out naturally by the largely non-professional cast. The director chose to sketch a documentary-like mood, in which everyday rituals from the fishing village are juxtaposed with the deceitful world of television. But in the end Fish Dreams is not a political film. It is a painful and intimate love story that may have been told before, but this time very differently. (SdH)