‘Wolf And Dog’: Thessaloniki Review

Dir: Claudia Varejao. Portugal/France. 2022. 111mins

More than 900 miles west of Portugal’s coast lies the Azores island of Sao Miguel, the setting for Claudia Varejao’s fiction feature debut Wolf And Dog, a film as loose-limbed as the young people at its heart. That sense of isolation and individuality, and the opposing forces of community and a desire to conform, shape her LGBTQ+ coming-of-age tale, which has continued a strong festival run after winning the director’s award in Venice’s Giornati Degli Autori sidebar, and picked up distributors in Spain, France and Italy. Its unusual and strongly realised setting, along with its positive and hopeful depiction of the queer community, should see other countries follow suit.

Varejao’s direction, while initially rooted in neorealism, becomes increasingly experimental as the film progresses

Teenagers Ana (Ana Cabral) and Luis (Ruben Pimenta) may have always lived on the island, but they and their peers are looking to distant horizons and seem happy to break with tradition. Luis is out and proud, with his supportive mother more than making up from the negativity of his father. Ana, in contrast, has a more fractious relationship with her mother, although that seems to stem from the older woman’s personal frustrations more than anything else.

The teenagers hang out at the local gay bar, but it is a visit from a friend, Cloe (Cristiana Branquinho), who has moved to Canada, that proves the catalyst for Ana’s full sexual awakening. Although this is the kernel of the story, wider island life is also a firm part of the narrative, as we see everything from a baptism to a pilgrimage and the less-than-legal pursuits of Ana’s brother.

Varejao is an established documentarian, whose previous work includes soulmate study Amor Fati and abalone diving documentary Ama-San. A desire for authenticity extends to her casting of non-professionals who were, according to press notes, also involved in a 13-week personal development group to ready them for any discrimination they may face related to sexual orientation and gender idenity due to their involvement with the film. The concept of discrimination is adeptly handled by the script from Varejao and her collaborator Leda Cartum which, while indicating that the island is deeply religious, doesn’t paint the wider community as entirely hostile to its LGBTQ+ members. While tolerance is not the same as acceptance – as illustrated by a microaggression faced by Luis over a rosary – there’s a hopeful suggestion that movement may be ongoing from one to the other. 

Varejao’s direction, while initially rooted in neorealism, becomes increasingly experimental as the film progresses, even bringing the fourth wall crashing down at one point to ask us to take a good look at the glorious openness and pride of the next generation. Rui Xavier’s flowing camerawork goes with her, whether he’s capturing Luis’ graceful roller skating as a plane traces its own flight above him or the growing intimacy between Ana and Cloe in the violet half-light by a lake.

There are, however, points where Varejao lives a little too much in the moment, not quite finding the glue to stick her individual scenes fully together. For all the looseness in terms of framing, there’s also a tendency to push the central point too heavily, with dialogue noting “binarism is a prison” or the sudden appearance of light broken into a rainbow during a tender moment between Ana and Cloe.

Similarly, the idea of using whale song as an occasional leitmotif is interesting, but the film doesn’t commit fully enough to its melancholy charms. A moment in which we experience the world in the same way as Ana’s hard-of-hearing brother Simao feels more of an experiment than a service to the wider narrative. Yet, even if it doesn’t always pay off, this willingness to experiment with ideas indicates that Varejao is on her own journey to expand her filmmaking horizons.