“The shortest way is not always the best one,” Tonhão (Caçula Rodrigues) explains to a pair of French tourists he’s been hired by to take through the sand dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses national park in “Betânia.” They are less likely to argue with him than with each other, having clearly come to Brazil for entirely different reasons, and he hopes they will be satisfied by the otherworldly sights around them and then a swim in the lagoons where water collects between the sand, but this is a place where patience is required it is far from civilization, where their money might mean something as payment for services rendered, but the reward is in doing it. It’s also why Tonhão’s mother in law Betânia (Diana Mattos) has never left Lençóis Maranhenses, a fixture in the community that has gathered around her over the years as a midwife who must have delivered every child born within 30 miles at least once over by now, contented with what the land provides and more inclined towards self-sufficiency than any need for an additional complication of living.
Her satisfaction can be easily grasped in “Betânia,” when writer/director Marcelo Botta offers up something similarly unadorned and deeply pleasurable after awhile of engaging somewhat with dramatic structure in starting things off at Betânia’s husband’s funeral before abandoning it altogether. The death of Raimundo does not feel tragic here indeed, audiences may find themselves carried away by a celebration of his life that sweeps through the movie like nothing else does, marching across sands to all day long joyous music as well as light from dawn till dusk nor does it seem like she fears what will happen now that he’s gone so suddenly from her side after all these years. But their daughters Irineusa (Michelle Cabral) and Julecia (Rosa Ewerton Jara) do not see it the way she does, looking around at the house where they have to turn off the fridge at night so as not to waste electricity which they barely have any of anyway and wash clothes with water from the Amazon river that runs behind them, urging her to move back into the village where they’ve moved indeed, even named after her yet were Betânia to do this she wouldn’t just be letting go of sixty years’ worth but all her principles about living.
Botta and their editor Marico Hashimoto have cut the film in a way that makes you feel as though you’re sometimes privy to Betânia’s thoughts at odd moments, which initially look like crude flashbacks to what you’ve already seen but then jolt the senses when some scenes seem spliced in from the future; there is an early bumpiness to the structure of this assemblage, but getting a feel for its rhythms is no different than what area residents have done forever by way of adjusting to nature. The architecture becomes more captivating as the spirit takes hold and local songs come pouring out of every corner even a couple remixes of Sia and Lana Del Rey are thrown into the mix with each one reeking havoc on my tear ducts anew. A tour through potential new places to live for Betânia who cares if not for herself then at least for Antonio, Tonhão’s son whom she watches during the day when he isn’t in school turns into a travelogue of non-mappable spots Botta wants to put on the map, places where people thrive despite having none of what they need; while more interested in chasing these communities’ vitality than adhering strictly to any one narrative arc, like any good character should, “Betânia” finds itself rewarded by such an engagement.
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