From the moment little Ney de Souza Pereira spied cabaret and carnival icon Elvira Pagã on the stage, the die was cast and his young life had purpose.
All those beatings he stubbornly endured from his military officer dad because “I’m not raising my son to become an ARTIST,” all that drawing he was doing even at an early age meant something. And when he was finally big enough to ward off his father’s blows and escape his threats, he knew what promise he had to make. He would never be invisible again.
“I’ll make sure Brazil knows about me!”
“Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso” (titled “Homem com H” in Portuguese) is a straightforward pop star biopic, a film that covers many of the same bases as “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Get On Up” as it chronicles the life and struggles of a ground-breaking, barrier-shattering Brazilian showman, singing idol and queer icon.
Writer-director Esmir Filho and star Jesuíta Barbosa (“Unremember”) take us through this life, the many baby steps — first crush in his Air Force years, dabbling in costume design and acting before his high contratenor voice got noticed — and into outrageous but balladic glam pop fame and superstardom.
All this happens under the shadow of the long, repressive, censorious military dictatorship that ruled Brazil just as Ney was coming out and seizing the spotlight. A repeated image of the film is of Ney as a boy and then a young man, wandering the rainforest, not so much lost but finding his way and taking in all the wonders around him as he does.
Born in the 1940s, finding his voice in the ’60s and becoming an androgynous glam sensation in the ’70s, non-Brazilian viewers will find a lot of analogies to other careers in this singular star’s life story.
The tropes of the genre — the voice “discovered” while singing in a choir in Brasilia, that first band, a ballad-playing acoustic pop trio that converted known poetry into songs to evade censorship, inept managers and cheating ones, “going solo” and grabbing attention with every performance thanks to his (limited) attire, over-the-top Noh Theatre-Goes Native makeup and writhing stage presence, often in contrast to the lilting tunes he was performing.
Barbosa is riveting in the title role, making our anti-hero tentative but defiant, principled but flawed, passionate and impulsive. We see promiscuity in all its many forms as Matogrosso didn’t just “experiment,” he loved and coupled and throupled according to his shifting tastes and moods.
Bela Leindecker plays a friend, sounding board and lifelong confidante and sometimes lover. Augusto Trainotti is Cato, that first same-sex love, comrade in arms and air force base bunkmate in scenes whose physical chemistry simmers through the caution that their situation demanded. We meet hook-ups, feckless rich toy boys and “the one,” who shows up the moment AIDS hits Brazil.
Through all this, the one evolving constant is Ney’s relationship with his stern, cruel but steadily-softening father (Rômulo Braga, terrific), a man who beat his little boy but who kept checking on him, begging him to “come home” and eventually showing up at Ney Matogrosso’s ever-more-transgressive performances.
The lithe and body-positive Barbosa gives off a strong Rami Malek vibe, and that plays beautifully off Liev Schreiber/Eugene Levy look-alike Braga’s stony sternness.
Matogrosso, who took his father’s middle name as his stage name, was a little bit Jim Morrison, a hint of Freddie Mercury and a lot of Iggy Pop and David Bowie, all rolled up in one performer with the vocal range of a Baroque castrato, dolled-up like the fifth member of KISS.
Yeah, it’s a lot to process and the film meanders and dawdles as it passes through its many cliches. But in any language, in any culture, it’s fun to track a performer’s career from folk through glam to disco to pop and stadium-filling rocker. Here, that performer sounds like no one you’ve ever heard.
If there’s a failing in Netflix’s presentation of the film (in Portuguese, with subtitles, or dubbed) it’s that the songs themselves are NOT translated from Portuguese. As the film is heavily reliant on performance scenes, we miss what made the tunes connect with and reflect the culture Matogrosso has performed in — tunes that could be rebellious, sexual, romantic, patriotic and counter-culture controversial.
There’s a touch of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar’s story that parallels this uncommon life — a confused boy, closeted, treasured by his mother (Sabina Zúñiga Varela), bristling at the constraints of a fascist-ruled ultraconservative culture.
But unlike Almodovar, Matogrosso defiantly stood up, blew up and came out before the dictatorship ended. If he didn’t have a role in that military-rule downfall, his years of growing stardom were one long raspberry spat in the face of Brazil’s “establishment.” A triumphant “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” finale makes sure to give Ney Matogrosso the last word in that debate.
Rating: TV-MA, some violence, drug abuse, sex, nudity and profanity
Cast: Jesuíta Barbosa, Rômulo Braga, Bela Leindecker, Jeff Lryio, Mauro Soares, Augusto Trainotti and Sabina Zúñiga Varela
Credits: Scripted and directed by Esmir Filho. A Netflix release.
Running time: 2:09
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