The Oyster and the Wind Reviews

An interesting bit of dark fantasy from Brazilian director William Lima Jr., intricately plotted and fraught with disturbing psychological undertones. A year and a half after leaving the tiny isolated island he once shared with José (Lima Duarte) and José's teenage daughter Marcella (Leandra Leal), Daniel (Fernando Torres) returns to find the place mysteriously deserted. Through José's logbook and Marcella's diary, Daniel reconstructs the tragic events that culminated in madness, suicide and murder. José first came to the island when Marcella was only 5, ostensibly to become the lighthouse keeper. But his deeper motive becomes clear once Marcella reaches puberty: He means to keep his daughter safe from the lascivious clutches of other men, hiding her away in the proverbial tower on the island. Marcella, however, proves resourceful: Denied human contact, she anthropomorphizes the island and the natural elements that surround her, ultimately taking the wind itself as her lover -- a jealous lover who will broach no competition. Lima, who first emerged in the 1960s as part of the explosion of Brazilian filmmaking collectively known as the Cinema Novo, has long been interested in fantasy and magic realism: His 1987 film O BOTO dealt with the seduction of a fisherman's wife by a dolphin. Here he throws Shakespeare into Freudian overdrive, juxtaposing images of the towering lighthouse with uncanny caves, and unleashing repressed desires and more forbidden fantasies than are dreamt of by less imaginative filmmakers.