In 'Private Desert,' online infatuation leads to an unexpected oasis
Brazilian drama, playing at the Detroit Film Theatre, is written and directed by Aly Muritaba.
Daniel’s life is a mess.
He’s suspended from his job as a police training officer after hospitalizing a recruit. He spends his days caring for his aged, senile father — bathing him, changing his diapers, feeding him. And now the force wants Daniel to see a psychiatrist before he can get his job back.
Plus there's this girl he's met online who's driving him crazy. She's hesitant to exchange nude pictures, she ignores many of his calls, but he can't stop thinking about her.
So one day Daniel (Antonio Saboia) parks his father at his sister’s house, jumps in his truck and drives hundreds of miles to find the woman of his dreams.
Director-writer Aly Muritaba spends a full half-hour with Daniel at home, lingering on the mundane and sparking questions. There’s obviously some violence simmering within him — how and why did his trainee end up in the hospital? — but it’s hard to tell how much, just as it's difficult to say why this one woman he's never met is so bewitching to him.
When Daniel takes to the road those questions weigh ever more heavy. The entire idea of an online romance starts alarms ringing. Something's inevitably going to go wrong — how will the volatile Daniel react?
Daniel knows the area where his love, Sara, lives, but nothing else beyond her phone number. So he starts posting photos of Sara around town, showing locals her picture, but nobody recognizes her.
Here's the problem: Sara is played by an actor named Pedro Fasanaro. Now you see where this is going.
Except, thankfully, you don't. Muritaba avoids the obvious at every turn. Where Hollywood might turn a story like this into a vulgar piece of exploitation, in "Private Desert" both Daniel and Sara are conflicted, complex people caught in lives not of their own making. They are unsure, vulnerable and confused — in other words, human. As is their story.
Tom Long is a longtime contributor to The Detroit News.
'Private Desert'
GRADE: B
Not rated
Running time: 121 minutes
At the Detroit Film Theatre