Godspeed 2022 Movie Review
Netflix premiere today, their Turkish movie of the month Boa ViagemIt’s a prank, in many ways to see it. We could say that we found exactly what we imagined until a certain moment, where the film doesn’t present much more than a melodrama that is half televised, half corny to the extreme, even being funny here and there. That is, during a long period of production, which is quite long in fact, the film not only fails to surprise but also annoys here and there, due to the very traditional way (also known as “square”) with which it treats its elements, be it the character design, the actions in which they are involved and the tone reached by their three parallel trajectories. More than that, the film is a lazy and somewhat artificial cinema, verging on mischief in many moments, without having the idea of what to do with the amount it presents.
Responsible for the phenomenon on numerous platforms (including Netflix) Milagre na Cella 7 – which the critic in question did not cast stone as a significant part of the spectators – Mehmet Ada Öztekin, it is safe to say, grew up watching the traditional Turkish telenovelas that today are successful all over the world, including Brazil. His dramaturgy weapons here tend much more to slip into what Globo continually produces (and probably there too) than in the previous film, which was indeed loaded with molasses, but worked well as a cinema all the time, albeit a cinema with few aesthetic qualities. The first part of this ‘Boa Viagem’ flirts in countless moments with an aspect that slips into sound and imagery exaggeration, with a sharp track that breaks out at crucial moments.
His previous work, although far from having a visual identity, managed to translate to Turkey the feeling that Frank Darabont imprinted in Waiting for a Miracle , for example. Here, there is a certain image fatigue translated into chroma keysvery unpleasant to follow to film what is traditionally a ‘road movie’; Now, if the director manages to film the road and the movement of the car where the protagonists’ story unfolds during several scenes, why is the spectator obliged to follow other such careless passages, from time to time? It’s a sloppiness that has even been observed in contemporary American productions, but here the whole thing doesn’t let the production breathe elsewhere. The result takes a while to get in gear, and it’s not even possible to conclude that the wait is rewarded. What we see from the middle is correct, but some conclusions are starting to be made about the content.
There is a friction that pushes Boa Viagem in a clearly toxic direction, where the men on the scene, whether the duo of protagonists or the vast majority of the characters they come across, in the present or in their past, are of atrocious violence, some against others. It’s not even a matter of people being stressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown constantly just, but of people committing unnecessary acts left and right, without thinking about consequences and just spreading bad feelings along the way. This characteristic is so strong that at a certain point the viewer really starts to believe that this was the real intention, to make a reading very close to reality about how machismo hurts the man himself, and everyone around him – obviously, women included.
In addition to this interesting aspect, the film also delves into the casualties of wars throughout History, but whose focus on Turkey has killed even today as if it had never been different. Both Salih and Karim are victims and tormentors in life that they perpetrated outside the combat zone, and they take this unhealthy masculinity to a real-life front. Salih is seen as a guy who was broken in this warlike past, both physically and emotionally; Karim, on the other hand, is the symbol of a more traditional type, raising its lightness like a flag, although it also transforms itself here and there. They are men destroyed by the conflicts where they were thrown, destitute of humanity both there and on their return, but who bump into figures steeped in bitterness and tragedy even without having gone to the environment of war.
In other words, there is indeed a way out for Boa Viagem that takes it away from the joke that the director almost imprints on its development, which ends up revealing a certain depth of analysis later on. With the right to a very hard plot twist , of those we ended up remembering what we saw so far, the title reveals itself to be tender in its final moments, allowing 10 minutes without dialogue, just revealing how much loss someone can take before going crazy. It’s a turn the film gives itself in an attempt to become more relevant than it was presented, and if it doesn’t save the show completely, it proves that its director has wood to burn. Just get rid of the shackles that enclose you in your own culture, or assume your gaiety from start to finish.
