The Oyster and the Wind

This reverie-cum-mystery (beautifully shot by Pedro Farkas) concerns the inhabitants of one of Brazil's remote Downed Islands - 'where the days go backwards and forwards like the waves' - populated only by a 60-year-old lighthouse keeper, his jealously guarded daughter Marcela, and a crew of sailors who bring provisions once a month. Unfolding through flashbacks (Marcela is played by three actresses), it's a tale of troubled sexual awakening, repressed passions and mysterious pasts, in which nothing is made explicit. Marcela's disembodied voice is invoked as one sailor reads her journal, conjuring up the story of the mysterious Saulo and 'The Idiot' boy Roberto - but what's truth? what fiction? A mature, distinctively directed work, oneiric and powerful, but also a touch warped and darkly obsessive.