‘The Blue Trail’ Director on His “Boat Movie” About a Rebellious Granny That Is an “Ode to Freedom”

‘The Blue Trail’ Director on His “Boat Movie” About a Rebellious Granny That Is an “Ode to Freedom”

The Blue Trail, the latest movie from Brazilian filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro (Neon Bull, Divine Love, August Winds), takes viewers into a magical but also political Amazon in a near-future dystopia.

The film, which won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at Berlin this year, is one of the highlights from the recent festival circuit that is screening in the Horizons program of the 59th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), starting on Friday.

“In order for Brazil to develop economically, the country gives priority to its younger generations, while older people are put away in government colonies so they will not ‘get in the way,’” reads a synopsis. The 77-year-old Tereza, however, refuses and decides to escape. 

That sets the stage for a movie that puts older women in the spotlight in ways rarely seen. Denise Weinberg stars as Tereza, along with Miriam Socarras and Rodrigo Santoro.

“What’s remarkable about The Blue Trail and makes it such a delight is that despite all the oppression in the air, it’s a movie filled with hope and faith in human resilience at any age,” THR‘s review highlighted.

THR asked Mascaro about his inspirations for The Blue Trail, what went into creating an autocratic state and its slogans, the movie’s religious and sexual undertones and what’s next for him.

Tell me a bit about why you set the film in a dystopian near-future Brazil? And how universal are the themes of the film in your view?

In every family, we have an aging relative, so it has been very special to see the film resonate so strongly at all the festivals where it has screened. There are very few films with elderly protagonists. The movies we see in general often focus on older characters left behind in a world that is moving on without them, portraying aging as a period of painful isolation or physical decline. In many cases, the past becomes a driving force in these stories, motivating the protagonist to seek a final purpose, perhaps to allow them to die in peace. These stories often carry an undercurrent of nostalgia and inevitability, where death unconsciously shapes the narrative’s tension. 

Growing up, I lived in a house with many people, and my grandparents were always in my life. My grandmother learned to paint at 80 years old, after my grandfather’s death, and seeing things like this changed my perspective on aging. It showed me how the elderly can become protagonists of their own self-discovery and make significant changes, even impressive or astonishing ones.

In my film, I wanted to explore a different perspective. My approach proposes a journey, with elements of adventure and fantasy, and reconnecting with one’s desire to be free. It’s a “boat movie” about aging and dreaming, with older women taking center stage. The Blue Trail is a film about the right to dream, featuring an older protagonist who decides not to accept the fate that someone else, in this case, the state, has traced for her. I wanted to make a film that serves as an ode to freedom, showcasing a rebellious septuagenarian, dealing with her imminent seclusion in a senior colony, and signaling it is never too late to find new meaning in life.

How close do you feel we are to this social and political future, given all the things going on in Brazil and the world?

I think the strength of the film is in capturing an imaginary [world] — how the elderly are framed within a society governed by the logic of productivity. And this society with these values is one we are already living in today. I just created a light distortion of reality through a playful allegory. More than anticipating the future, what’s unusual about the film is the feeling that everything we see in it could already be real.

This film is set in a society obsessed with productivity, where older citizens are invited to exile themselves from the rest of the community upon reaching a certain age. I see it as a near-dystopian, yet simultaneously inspiring, fable about Tereza, a 77-year-old woman whose time to “go away” has just arrived. Refusing to accept this “social euthanasia,” Tereza embarks on a journey in search of freedom and a long-held dream. Her journey truly begins when she runs away on a boat that will take her deep into the Amazon, and deep into her own soul.

I found the slogan “The future is for everyone” that the state in the film uses quite scary. What was your thinking behind that?

I wanted to build a state that, instead of a caricature of a villain, has an “elegant” way of trying to sell the idea that it is doing something noble. I chose to create a cunning autocratic state that profanes euphemism and publicly celebrates the elderly while simultaneously alienating their bodies.

Why did you want to address aging, especially aging with dignity and as a woman in an economy-focused society, as well as freedom, as themesnow?

I think The Blue Trail indirectly addresses a lot of serious and delicate contemporary issues, especially related to the forced displacement of people, groups, or ethnicities from their homes in the name of a state project. It’s about the elderly being removed from society, but it also resonates with so many other groups of people. From gentrification, to the removal of indigenous communities from their lands for economic exploitation, to wars waged for territorial gain while wealthy countries profit from arms sales, the treatment of refugees and immigrants forced to leave their countries due to conflicts or oppression. Above all, I wanted to make a film that was passionate about the presence and the possibilities of our drive for life. A film about the character of a woman — a mother, grandmother, older, yet still not confined to a fixed identity. Tereza embodies the desire to live out this journey, the willingness to try on new identities and experience new things in a unique, original, and undogmatic way.

I find that it is unusual to see elderly protagonists in cinema, especially in dystopias, fantasies and also in anything resembling a “coming-of-age” drama. Genre conventions in cinema are powerful tools for storytelling, but they can be oppressive to storytellers as well. It often seems as though rebellion against the system is something reserved for the young. Like the quest for maturity, understanding and finding your place in the world, should be rites of passage meant only for high school students or people not much older.

I hope it is a film that plays with genres in a fun way. Instead of adhering to a single genre, I wanted to create an interaction between the lyrical and the playful in a sort of post-tropical delirium that challenges some of these rigid lines.

How important are religious and sexual undertones for you in general and particularly this film and why?

More than talking about “futurism,” when we speak of dystopia, my interest lies in imagining and speculating about changes in behavior. So naturally, themes like desire, eroticism and religion emerge as tools to think about the tensions of my characters within the film’s world.

There doesn’t need to be a flying car on screen to create a displacement of space and time. Cultural or behavioral changes can signal a dystopia even more radically than a technology or a gadget. The challenge here was to think about a hypothetical world unique and singular to the world of the film – neither past, present nor future.

In The Blue Trail, the protagonist begins the film as a conservative, pro-system, averse to the idea of hallucinogens, but gradually changes how she perceives and feels the world. It was important for me to create the arc of an elderly woman who discovers the taste of freedom throughout her journey in the film. Deep down, she just wanted to take a plane ride, but ends up learning to fly much higher than she ever imagined possible.

Can you share some of your influences in cinema and in terms of directors? I got magic realism vibes, among others…

I think Chris Marker (La Jetée) showed me how it’s possible to fabricate worlds and shift realities without needing big devices. I learned from Claire Denis (Beau Travail) how to look at bodies. Jia Zhangke (A Touch of Sin) resonates in my work as a filmmaker who pays attention to space and landscape transformation. My research blends references but also different genres.

Playfully engaging with genre is an important part of my work, exploring possible cracks, and the potential they reveal, within the narrative tradition. I have a special affection for cinema that makes speculations of reality from fantastical notions, but that could still be real.

How did you come up with the funny but at the same time scary word “wrinkle wagon”that we hear in the film?

I did iconographic research on vehicles used to collect stray dogs. These vehicles marked the imagination of generations. So I tried to reframe this idea into a vehicle dedicated to collecting dissident elderly people on the streets. People popularly call the vehicle the “wrinkle wagon,” although its official name is “Citizen Police.” Having an alternative nickname adds a special flavor to the world-building, giving the film additional layers.

I told someone that I just saw a movie about an older woman who goes on an epic journey in a country focused on economic growth.” His reaction was: “Which country?!”When I said Brazil, he seemed surprised…

It’s curious that the Amazon, as consumed in cinema and TV outside of Brazil, is still so idealized. I wanted to challenge this romanticized, skewed representation we often see when it’s about conservation. The film takes us into an Amazon that is simultaneously magical and industrial, almost surreal, and deeply political.

The story speculates about a political system marked by tropical populist, developmental fascism, placing the Amazon not in the idealized space of “the lungs of the world,” but as the region at the heart of the planet’s contradictions. I see the Amazon as a character with its own life, laden with its own complexities.

I faced the challenge of redefining the idealization of Amazonian fauna. Thus, the viewer will be confronted with an unusual industrial-scale meat-processing factory for alligator meat and a betting house featuring fish fighting rings. The premise was to accentuate how large-scale capital and pop culture have appropriated the imagery of the region where the film is set.

The film also dedicates a special place to an enchanted snail that emits a blue slime with magical powers to open paths and see the future. The snail signals a poetic contradiction that can be associated with old age as well: slow in movement but infinite in possibilities. The blue slime snail leaves a blue trail wherever it goes, as if planting a seed for a new future.

What’s next for you? Any new projects?

I’m beginning to develop some new ideas while also staying open to falling in love with a screenplay that someone who admires my work might bring to me.