They’ll Come Back

For all its simplicity, the opening scene is extremely effective. From a great distance, we see a car stop by the side of the road in the middle of a panoramic landscape of hills. Two figures get out of the car. We don’t know why and can’t make any judgement. They turn out to be Cris (12) and her slightly older brother who – rightly or wrongly – have been ordered out of the car by their parents. They don’t know where they are; initially they assume that their parents will come back for them.
In beautiful shots by cameraman Ivo Lopes Araújo, the film then shows the adventures of an upper-class teenager whose eyes slowly open on her quest for familiar territory: she realises who she is, where she comes from and in which country she lives.
In his first fiction film after several documentaries, Marcelo Lordello shows a journey that is certainly universal for adolescents, but here subtly moves through a country that despite – or precisely because of – the rapid economic developments, is confronted with major contrasts between the classes.
They’ll Come Back, which has already won several prizes at the festival in Brasilia, makes it clear that the creativity of filmmakers from Recife and Pernambuco is still going strong: among those previously successful in Rotterdam are Cláudio Assis, Gabriel Mascaro, Marcelo Gomes and Kleber Mendonça.

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