52 Films by Women Vol 8. 3. Toll (Pedágio) (Director: Carolina Markowicz)

 

Photo courtesy of LuxBox / Bionica Films

A mother wants what’s best for her son. Ultimately, she wants to be validated, to prove that she brought him up ‘right’, to work hard and be of good character. But what if her son’s form of release is to wear make up and lip-synch to Dinah Washington and others’ songs on videos that he then posts on YouTube.  Shouldn’t she do something about it?

The answer is unquestionably no. If it is a phase, then the young man needs to work through it on his own as part of his journey towards living comfortably in his own skin, even if it means courting derision. If it defines his sexuality, so be it. However, overcome by shame, toll booth clerk, Suellen (Maeve Jinkings), the protagonist of Brazilian writer-director Carolina Markowicz’s Sao Paolo-set second feature, Toll (Brazilian title: Pedágio) makes a series of wrong decisions that lead her to deal with her so-called transgressive son by transgressing herself and enabling her no-good-thief of a boyfriend, Arauto (Thomás Aquino) to rob passing motorists whose toll fees she collects, all so Tiquinho (Kauan Alvarenga) can attend gay conversion therapy sessions administered by the Pastor (Isac Graça), whose classroom-based techniques, each one more absurd than the last, are apparently European and state of the art. When the class is introduced to a man who was ‘cured’, seen on video dancing semi-naked with a firecracker lodging in his anus, you immediately think that he is a fake and appeared that way for a dare, no doubt induced by much alcohol.

The film is sold as a suspenseful thriller, but that’s not how Markowicz paces it. She is interested in the disconnect between what passes for normality and what really makes people happy. At one point, Suellen stands on her bed, towering over Arauto but not facing him, naked save for a gold Rolex watch glittering on her wrist, foot arched, arm extended, hand bent forward, as if inviting her fingers to be kissed. She could be posing for a model sculpture – rich woman forgets to put clothes on. Suellen is seduced, empowered - far from the invisible person she is at work.

The opening depicts the drudgery of Suellen’s life, waking up next to Arauto while he sleeps totally oblivious to her movement. When she slips off her nightdress and snaps on her bra, the bra strap recoils, causing Suellen to fix it with irritation. Her route to work, far out of town, appears to be a series of missed connections, relying on strangers to offer her a ride – we can imagine her meeting Arauto that way. We see her clamber into the back of a truck, seated amongst gas cylinders. Arauto doesn’t appear to have been in her life for very long. ‘What? He has a key now?’  Tiquinho remarks with disdain as Arauto enters one morning. Suellen is appalled that Tiquinho wears her clothes and make-up for his videos. She threatens him with cutting off the internet. ‘I’ll just use the neighbour’s,’ he replies defiantly, reciting the alternate wi-fi code. Suellen has no response. Tiquinho is appalled that Arauto helps himself to breakfast.

Suellen’s best friend is Telma (Aline Marta Maia), who is celebrating thirty-nine years of marriage. Celebrate isn’t perhaps the right word. Telma is regularly pleasured at work by other men, offering herself for anal intercourse. One of her admirers is a surprise. She tells Suellen about the Pastor, whose success rate is second to none. As we discover, ‘second to none’ is still close to zero.

The conversion therapy sessions are the reason to see the film. Markowicz has a knack for classroom comedy, not the sort where kids answer back, but in the sheer banality of the lessons being taught. One of the classroom exercises involves walking around the room, although strolling whilst exuding self-confidence is exactly the way to appear attractive to anyone of any gender. The Pastor has a beard and wears a loose-fitting white shirt. He attempts to project himself as a latter-day Jesus, albeit one with a taste for expensive timepieces. Another lesson involves projecting words over an image of an anus to describe the various diseases that are cultivated there. He says to his audience, ‘why would you think of the anus as a destination for your desire?’ I would suggest, to gentrify it. Peckham in South London where I grew up was once described as ‘a bit of a sh-t hole’. Look what happened to that.

In another lesson, the class is asked to remould a plasticine version of their genitalia into that of the opposite sex, though representing a vagina in plasticine form is something of a challenge for those who have never seen one – cue laughter of recognition from the audience. In another lesson still, the boys are invited to drink pink jizz, which contains some sperm – ‘it’s pasteurized’, the Pastor insists – in order to be put off being attracted to the same sex, whilst young girls, including a very young child, who would struggle to spell gender dysphoria, much less experience it, are given blue liquid to imbibe. Clearly, the Minister is unfamiliar with alcopops, or even Slush Puppies. Tiquinho swallows the pink liquid with a healthy mixture of scepticism and indifference.

The classes aren’t all bad. Tiquinho meets Ricky (Caio Macedo), whom Tiquinho notes was one of the very few young people who raised his hand to indicate that he was attending voluntarily. ‘You have to do that in order that they won’t pick on you,’ says Ricky, adding, ‘I’ve been around the block, you know.’ Ricky meets Tiquinho after work – Tiquinho works at a fast-food restaurant wearing a ridiculous red paper hat. Eventually they kiss. It is the film’s one depiction of true love (as opposed to narcissism). Markowicz’s empathy explodes in this kiss, filmed in medium shot, as opposed to the scenes of Telma being pleasured, filmed in long shot. In one of the latter, we see the act from Suellen’s point of view.

The drinks sequence has an extra element of intended comedy, with the tray being wheeled down the aisle by the Pastor’s helper – the convert’s bespectacled and dowdy wife - in an uncertain way. The helper wants to push the trolley onto the raised stage but is unable to do so. Eventually, she removes the cloche to reveal tiny cups of pink and blue liquid. The absurdity of this sequence is the film’s highlight. By the end of the film, we miss the Pastor.

Suellen’s descent into transgression is motivated by the leather pouch she discovers in one of her drawers containing stolen watches and jewellery. She confronts Arauto. ‘Have you been spying on me?’ he asks. She tells him to take the stolen goods and leave. ‘Don’t you know the risk you’re making me take?’ she cries. ‘I’m looking after them for somebody,’ he replies, attracting a silent ‘yeah, right’ from both Suellen and the movie audience. When she has to raise $1,650 for the classes, she has no alternative but to invite Arauto back into her life. He hangs around other men blackening - not cooking - meat on outdoor grills. Not so much ‘barbecue’ as ‘barbie, no’.

Still courtesy of LuxBox / Bionica Film

At first, Suellen’s abetting of Arauto’s crimes, texting details of vehicles in which the drivers wear expensive jewellery, yields results. Arauto and his partner drive alongside the car on their motorbike and ask the driver to pull over and fleece them of their valuables. In one instance, Suellen is caught texting by her supervisor and gets a warning. Arauto and his partner meet a crime boss – well, a large guy named Vitaly, accompanied by two goons – near some oil pipelines. Great location. They extol the luxury of Rolexes, citing one as worth $40,000. At this point, we know that Arauto is thinking about the wrist-wear that Suellen insisted that they keep at home. The contents of an envelope are divided equally between Arauto and his partner.

We know that such an arrangement cannot last, and it doesn’t. There is a decisive incident towards the end in which excessive force is used against a victim that Suellen failed to identify. Then the filmmaker’s morality kicks in, though with a surprising coda. Arauto is unpunished. After all, Vitaly is in cahoots with local police. Finding Arauto, Tiquinho kicks over the barbecue grill in disgust. ‘You finally became a man,’ Arauto tells him with mocking irony, whilst gesturing that his friends leave Tiquinho alone.

In the film’s final scene, Tiquinho comes through for Suellen, betraying the love, respect, and compassion he has for his mother. He is unapologetic about who he is, expressed, in close-up in his final lip-synching performance (a song about a mother coming home) in a half-empty club where Suellen looks at him, her eyes glistening with sadness, before scooping potato onto a customer’s plate. The pathos is Olympian.

By the film’s climax, the English language title, Toll, takes on a new meaning. The ending is not triumphant, rather pragmatic. Tiquinho is a young man who works hard and tries to do right. But he also knows who he is. Society has to catch up with him.

 

Reviewed at Stockholm International Film Festival, Zita Screen One, Friday 17 November 2023, 18:00 screening.