Marco Calvani’s “High Tide”: On the one hand, it is a narrative that has some scattered and intimate moments about a queer haphazard immigrant. On the other, it has an impressive lead performance that stars Marco Pigossi as Lourenco, which elevates it even during the dull moments of the film where even the plot structure lacks coherence at times. The film seems ‘constructed’ around small episodes as it revolves around the life of a Brazilian émigré who goes by the name, Lourenço and is in the Massachusetts town of Provincetown waiting for his American lover while desperately trying to keep his visa active. Pigossi, who plays Lourenço, is in such great form that when combined with the kindness, aggression, and animosity present in the tone of the film, which appear to be everywhere, enhance the ‘disjointed features’ of the film making it one continuous structure.
The dynamic start of “High Tide” sees Cuson’s character Lourenço, in a comically pessimistic style, hopping straight into the sea while almost naked in a frantic moment, instantly gripping viewers with anticipation. Calvani is adept at keeping the audience’s attention with such tension in scenes as stunning imagery is combined with sounding waves lapping at the surface that evokes a strong visual. Calvani has a predictable way to capture and maintain the audience’s attention. He is very nail biting throughout the film and depicts scenes of struggle which in turn enhance the tension throughout the film. The developers and Calvani as a director take advantage of such situations frequently, almost to the point of overkill, so when the plot is revealed, it doesn’t feel dull and the viewer is constantly anticipating the mystery to be resolved.
Lourenço is not a refugee in the classical sense nor is he “undocumented” per se, even if that word has been used to describe him several times. Instead, he is about to overstay his tourist visa and the pathway to remaining in the U.S. lawfully is complicated and riddled with sky high obstacles, and he has a professional degree in accounting. So, while waiting for his homecoming sweetheart Joe, the true situation between the couple is left for the reader’s imagination in the first place, he obtains odd jobs in the summer cottages of wealthy people as a cleaner and a painter and lives in a small house of well known people Scott (Bill Irwin) who is an older glamorous homosexual in his transitional phase and feels slightly domineering of the two.
As he waits on Joe, eventually Loureço comes across Maurice (James Bland), a handsome doctor with a nice voice, residing in Queens and en route to a residency in Angola. It’s clear that Maurice is yet another temporary player in Lourenco’s life anyway, but still gives him a brief enough flame to ignite the entire concept of him being in such dire straits into thinking a bit differently, or rather seeing them differently. Their dynamics do feel sweet, but rather over done in certain places in the writing, when Calvani, for example, eventually attempts to integrate botched critiques of white queerness into his own skin.
Both types of these speeches, either the memories of ethnicity hostility or the uttery of the longings, which surround Pigossi and Bland, are characterized by the spark of an amateur performance mix. At least, this is how it fits to a sensible brain as these anti motivational dialogues were made real with determination and ignorance. Pigossi in particular is brilliant in turning these functional first lines of dialogue into cadences of desire: The desire is hidden in the dark behind his eyes but there is a sense of a warm beautiful soul as well, which he turns into a performance that does its beauty and tragic beauty really well (even if the film around him has taken the clichés of the norm and run away with all of them).
Marisa Tomei, the executive producer, and Mya Taylor, the “Tangerine” actress, are in minor supporting roles that though are short have both women making energetic, meaningful punctuations to the calmness that Pigossi exudes. However, what mostly gives meaning to the depiction in “High Tide”, against all odds, is the liberation that the vulnerability offers. It is a style that is thematic in the film as well because of the works of the cinematographer Oscar Ignacio Jiménez whose tight close up stills of locked gaze, smiling lips, stretch marks on naked bodies, and feet intertwined on lovers’ waist limbs form a mode of cinematic intimacy that is hypnotic, which the film often goes into for quite some time.
Then, save the overwhelming stupidity of Lourenço’s visa predicament, many of the social issues raised by the film’s distant characters do not find themselves aestheticized or brought to life with any discernable artistry. Nonetheless, Pigossi clearly grabs this idea of transience and manages to morph it into a certain instability the feeling of shifting sands under one’s feet which in turn causes him to bend the film around his character making it unpredictable. It’s a brilliant, passionate interpretation which not only manages to ensure that ‘High Tide’ has a continuing interest factor, but at times makes it feel invigorating as well.
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