52 Films Directed By Women Vol 1: 21. DON’T CALL ME SON (MÃE SÓ HÁ UMA) (Director: Anna Muylaert)
Felipe (Naomi Nero) is an inattentive student who likes to
wear women’s underwear. He likes girls, though when his girlfriend kisses him
at a musical rehearsal, he draws the line. Unbeknownst to him, he is being
watched. One evening, his (single) mother, Aracy (Daniela Nefussi) arrives home
late – Felipe’s younger sister boils him an egg by way of taking care of him.
Aracy doesn’t explain where she has been but then two men knock at the door and
ask to speak to Felipe. There is something his mother hasn’t told him.
Felipe’s mother is arrested for having stolen him as a baby.
He has been identified as Pierre, the long missing son of Matheus (Matheus
Nachtergale) and Gloria (also played by Nefussi). He is ‘returned’ against his
will to live with his family. Only he is a young man in transition, with a
liking for women’s dresses.
The plot is the stuff of telenovelas. Where Don’t Call Me Son really scores is in the
indictment of a family law system that does not allow adolescents in Felipe’s
situation – his biological parents insist on calling him Pierre – being
transitioned in to the life he has never known. He is cast against his will
from one situation, where he is to some extent in control of the pace of
finding his real (sexual) identity to another set-up entirely, where his
actions provoke his biological parents. Moreover, Felipe doesn’t view his other
mother as a criminal. He wants to continue their relationship even though she
is in police custody.
An American TV movie might focus on the trial of Aracy, but
Muylaert keeps her camera on Felipe’s extreme actions, choosing a dress rather
than polo shirt in a clothes shop and going bowling in women’s clothing – to
paraphrase Oscar Wilde, his ball constantly ends up in the gutter whilst his
biological father sees metaphorical stars (hashtag Oscar So Right). That said
Muylaert cannot – and does not – resolve the story. The film ends with Felipe
dedicating himself to another quest.
Like The Second Mother,
the title Don’t Call Me Son has two
meanings. Not only does Felipe not want to be Matheus and Gloria’s son, though
he doesn’t take this out on his younger biological brother, Joca (Daniel
Botelho) but he doesn’t want to be thought of (in gender terms) as a boy. He is
contrasted with Joca who has girlfriend issues with a 12 year old girl in his
class. The young Joca discusses his relationship with the unseen girl in adult
terms. He represents in extremis the pressure to be moulded into a heterosexual.
Felipe teeters on the verge of being a good older brother to him but he is too
unhappy to take young Joca in hand.
Don’t Call Me Son
isn’t as satisfying as The Second Mother
but it does have some good scenes. The story about a family’s struggle to get
their son to love them has resonance. In the end, it is a person’s past, not
their biology, that is the strongest contributor to their identity - nurture
not nature.
Reviewed on Friday 19
February 2016, 20:00, Cinemaxx Berlin, 66th Berlinale (Berlin
International Film Festival) – with thanks to the stranger who had just seen ‘A
Quiet Passion’ and sold me his ticket
Originally published on Bitlanders.com
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