Joao Pedro Rodrigues’ O Fantasma is a rich, spellbinding celebration of raw male adolescent sexuality unlike any film I have ever seen. It is a paean to tawdry, squalid, horndog homo-sex. A glorious reverent escapade in shamelessness. But far more than that, it soars. It is poetry culled the from the trash heap of a mean and meager world where imperative need turns us all into scavengers. Lyricism from the reckless rush of teenage testosterone that grips us in its bite and shakes us like a rag doll.
Ricardo Meneses, in what has to be one of the most auspicious film debuts of all time, captures all the urgency, electricity and innocence of male coming-of-age without affectation or apology. He is so completely intuitive and unselfconscious that his most outrageous behavior seems plausible and rational. Even sympathetic. 17 when he auditioned for a role that has almost no dialogue, and self-identified as straight, he nonetheless copped to several same-gender experiences, which he readily admitted enjoying.
The eroticism of his character, Sergio, is so infectious, even cops can’t resist tantalizing him with their nightsticks. But when he responds to their rough foreplay, it is with rapacious defiance. He is emboldened by the sheer velocity of his hunger. Meneses has the looks of a young Brendan Fraser, the swagger of James Dean, and charisma that is his alone. He takes the torch from Dean, who might have made such a film, had he been born in more enlightened times.
O Fantasma translates from the Portuguese as: The Phantom. It is the story of Sergio, a garbage collector who seems to have no friends, but plenty of male sexual contacts. He cares for a dog named (appropriately enough) Lorde. Lorde is Sergio’s consort, soul-twin, familiar. O Fantasma takes its core conceit from doggy behavior. Sergio almost seems to revel in canine ritual. Marking territory, rooting through garbage, nuzzling and sniffing articles of clothing. Like a dog he is opportunistic, indiscriminate, beyond humiliation. Like a dog his senses are amplified and intense.
Only truly alive when acting out, his sexuality overflows into other elements of his life. Again, it is Ricardo Meneses’ flawless performance that vindicates the fantastic content. He has such utter conviction, such focus, that what might have seemed ludicrous or repugnant becomes a revelation. He approaches fetishes instinctively, as if he’s the first one to discover them. Ever. There is a splendid scene where he strips naked except for biker’s gloves, and, like Mishima’s first glimpse of Sebastian‘s martyrdom, his hands seize a mind of their own.
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Article comments
1 - Erikqjames
Perfectly said, thank you for writing this. Sad indeed that Ricardo Meneses has not starred in another film.