Brazilian gay teen awaits open doors
The eponymous 15-yearold Afro-Latino teen in Brazilian American filmmaker Alexandre Moratto’s empathy-inducing “Socrates” roams São Paulo’s impoverished neighborhoods in the aftermath of his mother’s passing. He knocks on familiar doors, hoping that someone can provide understanding and shelter.
Underage Socrates (Christian Malheiros) oscillates between stoicism and crushing wails, unable to get hired to support himself and prevent being sent to his estranged father. Revealed via portioned exposition, the complications of his plight slowly come into focus.
The writing by director and co-scribe Thayná Mantesso is deft and pithy, and there’s a rawness of spirit in both the stellar central performance and the film’s social realist aesthetic.
As Socrates endures grief and battles homelessness, his friendship with Maicon (Tales Ordakji) corroborates that concealing their nature is required to survive their environment, where faith-based prejudices and ignorance reign.
Inspired by Moratto’s volunteering work with the Querô Institute, a UNICEFbacked organization advocating filmmaking as a tool to empower at-risk youths, and produced in direct collaboration with its participants, the blistering sincerity in “Socrates” is not fabricated but channeled from its authentic source.
Cinematographer João Gabriel de Queiroz’s camera walks alongside the bruised warrior, watching for the tide of life to shift in his favor.
“Socrates.” In Portuguese with English subtitles. Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 11 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Music Hall.