In a future Global South blighted by environmental catastrophe, a
teenager is offered a chance to journey to the promised land of the
North.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Lucía Garibaldi
Starring: Martina Passeggi, Soledad Pelayo, Sofía Gala Castiglione, Alfonso
Tort
Uruguayan writer/director Lucía Garibaldi follows up her
Sundance breakout debut The Sharks with another quirky coming-of-age drama centred on a smart young
woman. This time she's dabbling in science fiction with A Bright Future, a blackly comic piece of speculative fiction that plays like a
dystopian Young Adult thriller by way of the Greek Weird Wave.
Our young heroine here is Elisa (Martina Passeggi), a rosy-cheeked
teen living in a near future where an environmental catastrophe has left
the global South uninhabitable. While a select group of elites live in the
still fertile North, most of the population is crammed into a small area
stuck between the North and South borders. Young people who display high
intelligence are selected to journey to the North to help rebuild society.
Thus, smarty pants Elisa finds herself plucked from her drab suburb and
given the opportunity most dream of, including her mother (Soledad Pelayo), who has her heart set on winning a trip to the North via state
lottery.
Trouble is, Elisa doesn't dream of leaving the South. She's eked out a
life for herself, using her smarts to run a business selling hard to come
by goods to her neighbours. But the authorities view Elisa as a prime
candidate, forcing her to undertake a series of farcical tests which they
already know she will pass.
If you turned the sound off and couldn't hear its Spanish dialogue, you
might assume A Bright Future was the latest black comedy to emerge from Greece. Garibaldi
appears to take her cues from the distinctive absurdism of filmmakers like
Yorgos Lanthimos, Athina Rachel Tsangari and especially Christos
Nikou. Like Nikou's Apples and Fingernails, A Bright Future is centred on a protagonist trying to retain an ounce of humanity
in a sterile society. The comedy beats are very much of the Greek variety,
based largely on people giving in to their most base instincts. To make a
quick buck, Elisa follows the advice of her cool-aunt-energy neighbour
Leonor (Sofía Gala Castiglione) and embarks on a unique brand of
sex work. This sees her go days without bathing in order to turn on a
group of blindfolded customers with her "youthful" scent.
Garibaldi never doles out any explanation of the effects of her film's
environmental apocalypse, allowing us to put two and two together with the
nuggets she subtly offers throughout her film. There are details that seem
inspired by cult sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, like how residents purchase
speakers that emit dog and cat sounds, the real animals having gone
extinct. Young people appear to be thin on the ground here, hence the
willingness of people to fork out cash to sniff Elisa's sweaty pores.
We're never told why this is the case, but it's clearly intended to
reflect the exodus of young people from our real world global
South. Garibaldi appears to be making a plea to the youth of South America to
give their own lands a chance, that the grass may not always be greener up
North.
Like the young Romina Bentancur in The Sharks, Passeggi is another star find by Garibaldi. In her first role the young
actress delivers a confident performance that is always in tune with the
film's uniquely odd vibe. As a character Elisa might have a notable IQ
and some canny resourcefulness, but the movie never lets us forget that
she's still a rather naive teenager. Just like the young heroine of
Garibaldi's previous film, Elisa doesn't always make the right choices,
but the point is that she makes a choice. Many sci-fi tales have been
centred on free will, and in Elisa, Garibaldi and Passeggi have created
a young woman determined to exercise hers, at any cost.
