August Sky (2021) | Film Review
As the Amazon burns for the seventeenth day, a seven month pregnant nurse in Sao Paulo finds herself drawn to a pious woman and her neo-Pentecostal church.
The rise of a far right — openly homophobic — president in 2018, the ruthless burning of the Amazon forest and the massive burden of COVID (660,723 deaths since 2021). August Sky is a mood centric piece that uses symbolism to reflect the unstable reality of Brazilian life of the last four years.
My last vice. I’ve quit drugs, I’ve alcohol, I’ve quit parting. But this… I will quit. Soon. — Nicole, August Sky (2021)
We have four main characters in the story. First Lucia, a pregnant nurse, who anxiously wonders around Sao Paulo, terrified something might happen to her unborn child. Lucia can be interpreted as what Brazil looks like now. Filled with promises, but confused and tired. She is the first to suffer the consequences of the world around her, when a dead bird splatters blood on her pregnant bump, as if marking it to what is to come. She is like the burning Amazon.
Then we have Grandmother. She is a sick elderly woman who keeps telling Lucia how her baby is “asleep”. If Lucia is present day Brazil, Grandmother is the past. She is always juxtaposed with images of the Amazon fires or a screaming bird locked in a cage, she is the is representation of a dying country, constantly taking pills to feel better, but only falling into a deeper state of delusion and sickness.
Nicole is the lie the country was promised. As previously mention, conservatism grew rapidly in Brazil in the last four years, after all people needed stability, they wanted someone to give them answers. When Lucia is most scared, Nicole is the one able to reach her out and tell her what she needs to hear. However, we see that Nicole has one final vice, smoking, and when Lucia asks her to take a drag, it is implied that she does allow it. This could be read as the so called better future showing it`s true intensions: aiding the present into more self-destruction.
One final thing that is interesting to talk about the relationship between Lucia and Nicole is that, their attraction could never be fulfilled. As women inside a very conservative and pious environment, their attraction could never be consummated, just like the better future Brazil was promised by conservatism could never be fulfilled.
Finally, we can talk about the unborn child. A looming presence throughout the film, the baby could be a representation of the future to come, a promise of new life. However, as the story progresses, Lucia starts to fill odd pains in her bump, leading her to be fearful for her unborn baby. Just like Brazil`s future, the baby is at constant risk of not making it, fighting for its survival.
August Sky is the story of the apocalypse of a woman and a country, both with unfulfilled desires and promises, desperately trying to heal their past and holding on to any future they might have.
This review was originally posted on Lesflicks.com
