(Okay, this got LENGTHY, but I was a bit frustrated trying to find a thorough synopsis of this movie in English, so hopefully this will potentially be helpful to others who want to get the entire run-down before diving in.)
This movie is about two Brazilian half-brothers who begin an incestuous relationship as adults. To start with, I found I needed to accept the premise that this movie is set a step or two away from our reality, in an alternate one where, to start with, soulmates are definitely real. Thomàs, the youngest child, does not open his eyes for the first several weeks of his life until shown to his five-year-old half-brother Francisco, at which point he looks directly into his brother's eyes. Throughout the movie, there are implications that there is something mystical or pre-ordained about the brothers' connection to one another. Thomàs literally only has eyes for his brother practically from the moment of his birth.
Upon Thomàs' dramatic eye-opening, the movie jumps ahead to when the boys are about 6 and 11 years old, living in a happy, loving home with mother Julieta, Thomàs' father Alexandre, and Rosa, the nanny and family friend. This is my favourite segment of the movie, as the audience's understanding of the brothers' relationship is built up gradually - first as very ordinary brothers who play and bicker, then as close and affectionate brothers, then as something... a little too insular and excessive. The affection between them is childish and innocent, but also seemingly constant. They appear to spend their days playing and petting and kissing one another, and fall asleep wrapped around each other at night. A school fight (and lack of other children around them in general) suggests that the brothers have no other friends and keep to themselves. Francisco, already bordering on Nearly Too Old For All This, grows possessive of Thomàs. No individual thing is inappropriate, but there is a Too Much-ness to it that starts to concern their parents. However, the parents appear to be uncertain as to how to handle the situation, Julieta doesn't want them to feel ashamed, and rather confusingly, everyone involved seems to decide to support the brothers regardless of how their relationship evolves (rather than, say, get them to a therapist).
Anyway, Francisco's father lives exactly long enough to express concern over the brothers' overfamiliarity, then dies, seguing into Julieta's death 15 years later. After Julieta's funeral, Alexandre decides to move out and leave the family home to the two boys, and after a brief monologue from Thomàs about how their mother's death "clarified" things, he and Francisco immediately hop into bed (in a scene that's probably meant to be artful and meaningful, but comes off as... strange). And this is where things unravel a little bit in the movie. I wish we had seen different stages of their childhood, like perhaps their adolescence, and I wish we knew what their adult relationship was like prior to this point. While the timing of this consummation was likely at least in part to avoid any icky implications of Thomàs being underage or unable to truly consent, if they remained as close and boundary-less as they were as children, it stretches belief that they would only start fooling around once firmly into adulthood. There are hints later in the movie that the brothers always knew they would be together, but I wish I better understood why it happened when it happened.
So the brothers embark on being sickeningly in love, and entirely open about their relationship - Thomàs' swim coach is clearly quite aware and okay with it. (This is another element I ascribe to the "not our reality" theory - everyone around the brothers seems strangely accepting of them, and they're so enraptured with one another they barely seem to register that their relationship could be construed as problematic. I assume this is a world where sibling incest is about on par with being gay - a slightly unusual and non-mainstream lifestyle, but not as taboo as it is in our world.)
Conflict emerges when Thomàs, a competitive swimmer, is invited to train in Russia for three years for the next Olympics. It's the sort of opportunity that would be crazy to turn down, but Thomàs actually considers doing so, as the prospect of separation leaves both brothers distraught (interestingly, they don't seem to consider the possibility of Francisco coming with, if being apart is so distressing to them). Ultimately, Thomàs goes, and we see the brothers struggling with pining, loneliness, frustration, bickering, and poor decisions before things end the only way they possibly could - with Francisco flying to Russia and landing on his brother's doorstep.
Overall I enjoyed the movie, despite the issues mentioned above. The brothers' love story is often beautiful and touching, but the overall obsessiveness and excessiveness of the relationship also veers into the disturbing at times. I think the *concept* is very interesting - two siblings who seem to be born soulmates, who are in love and attracted to one another despite all taboos - but the second half of the movie in particular seems to try too hard to be artistic, and make every moment Deeply Meaningful, at risk of simply coming off as strange or mawkish. At the end of the day, it is probably best to view this movie as the simply telling of a story, without adding any extraneous social commentary. I would personally struggle to hang out with Thomàs and Francisco - but they're perfectly happy on their own anyway.
This movie is about two Brazilian half-brothers who begin an incestuous relationship as adults. To start with, I found I needed to accept the premise that this movie is set a step or two away from our reality, in an alternate one where, to start with, soulmates are definitely real. Thomàs, the youngest child, does not open his eyes for the first several weeks of his life until shown to his five-year-old half-brother Francisco, at which point he looks directly into his brother's eyes. Throughout the movie, there are implications that there is something mystical or pre-ordained about the brothers' connection to one another. Thomàs literally only has eyes for his brother practically from the moment of his birth.
Upon Thomàs' dramatic eye-opening, the movie jumps ahead to when the boys are about 6 and 11 years old, living in a happy, loving home with mother Julieta, Thomàs' father Alexandre, and Rosa, the nanny and family friend. This is my favourite segment of the movie, as the audience's understanding of the brothers' relationship is built up gradually - first as very ordinary brothers who play and bicker, then as close and affectionate brothers, then as something... a little too insular and excessive. The affection between them is childish and innocent, but also seemingly constant. They appear to spend their days playing and petting and kissing one another, and fall asleep wrapped around each other at night. A school fight (and lack of other children around them in general) suggests that the brothers have no other friends and keep to themselves. Francisco, already bordering on Nearly Too Old For All This, grows possessive of Thomàs. No individual thing is inappropriate, but there is a Too Much-ness to it that starts to concern their parents. However, the parents appear to be uncertain as to how to handle the situation, Julieta doesn't want them to feel ashamed, and rather confusingly, everyone involved seems to decide to support the brothers regardless of how their relationship evolves (rather than, say, get them to a therapist).
Anyway, Francisco's father lives exactly long enough to express concern over the brothers' overfamiliarity, then dies, seguing into Julieta's death 15 years later. After Julieta's funeral, Alexandre decides to move out and leave the family home to the two boys, and after a brief monologue from Thomàs about how their mother's death "clarified" things, he and Francisco immediately hop into bed (in a scene that's probably meant to be artful and meaningful, but comes off as... strange). And this is where things unravel a little bit in the movie. I wish we had seen different stages of their childhood, like perhaps their adolescence, and I wish we knew what their adult relationship was like prior to this point. While the timing of this consummation was likely at least in part to avoid any icky implications of Thomàs being underage or unable to truly consent, if they remained as close and boundary-less as they were as children, it stretches belief that they would only start fooling around once firmly into adulthood. There are hints later in the movie that the brothers always knew they would be together, but I wish I better understood why it happened when it happened.
So the brothers embark on being sickeningly in love, and entirely open about their relationship - Thomàs' swim coach is clearly quite aware and okay with it. (This is another element I ascribe to the "not our reality" theory - everyone around the brothers seems strangely accepting of them, and they're so enraptured with one another they barely seem to register that their relationship could be construed as problematic. I assume this is a world where sibling incest is about on par with being gay - a slightly unusual and non-mainstream lifestyle, but not as taboo as it is in our world.)
Conflict emerges when Thomàs, a competitive swimmer, is invited to train in Russia for three years for the next Olympics. It's the sort of opportunity that would be crazy to turn down, but Thomàs actually considers doing so, as the prospect of separation leaves both brothers distraught (interestingly, they don't seem to consider the possibility of Francisco coming with, if being apart is so distressing to them). Ultimately, Thomàs goes, and we see the brothers struggling with pining, loneliness, frustration, bickering, and poor decisions before things end the only way they possibly could - with Francisco flying to Russia and landing on his brother's doorstep.
Overall I enjoyed the movie, despite the issues mentioned above. The brothers' love story is often beautiful and touching, but the overall obsessiveness and excessiveness of the relationship also veers into the disturbing at times. I think the *concept* is very interesting - two siblings who seem to be born soulmates, who are in love and attracted to one another despite all taboos - but the second half of the movie in particular seems to try too hard to be artistic, and make every moment Deeply Meaningful, at risk of simply coming off as strange or mawkish. At the end of the day, it is probably best to view this movie as the simply telling of a story, without adding any extraneous social commentary. I would personally struggle to hang out with Thomàs and Francisco - but they're perfectly happy on their own anyway.