Official selection
Ann Arbor Film Festival 2022
IndieLisboa International Film Festival 2022
Director
Pedro Henrique
Producer
Justin Amorim, Pedro Henrique, Tiago Simões
Writer
Pedro Henrique
Cast
Miguel Angelo Santarém, Francisco Belard, Redgi Cardoso, Clara Dias, Sara Leite
contact
Promenade
In FRÁGIL, a group of disillusioned youths in Lisbon are consumed by the promise of the “club”. Irreverent, alien, and playful, the film takes the audience on a trip through the underground of Portugal's capital city as its young characters get high and unleash their unpredictable energy on the streets. While very much an ensemble piece, FRÁGIL focuses on the journey of Miguel (Miguel Angelo Santarém) as he tries (and fails) to make it to The Club. Like an endless nightmare filled with detours, memory lapses, and constant calls from his mother, Miguel's simple task becomes impossible. The movie channels the Safdie bros.' chaos and meets Richard Linklater's rock ’n' roll attitude. FRÁGIL is an Alice in Wonderland experience for queer zoomers who've embraced a post-apocalyptic aesthetic.
In his feature debut, Pedro Henriques's chaotic style uses voice-overs, dance sequences, animation, and elaborate sets to create a uniquely childlike atmosphere. Each frame is crowded with objects and drug-fuelled paraphernalia, and the streets are strewn with garbage. The movie even opens with a fourth-wall-collapsing photo montage that underlines FRÁGIL’s deep reverence for friendship and challenges the polished phoniness of most online lives. The film feels like a rebellion against our new age's clean and artificial aesthetics, embracing the down and dirty pleasures of being a young person living on the edge of society. Most of all, though, it's a movie about love, longing and living in the moment, capturing the ecstatic highs and hopeless lows of the experience. – Justine Smith
Showings
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