There’s an opaque quality to Divine Love (Divino Amor), as there was with Gabriel Mascaro’s last film, Neon Bull. But, subject matter to one side, the big difference between them is that Neon Bull didn’t explain itself, whereas Divino Amor does, only in the film’s last third revealing that it hasn’t really been explaining itself at all. It’s all been a bit of a feint.
The genre, for instance. Sci-fi, or so it claims, with the action set in Brazil in 2027 (barely into the future at all then) where Joana and Danilo, a loving couple are members of a charismatic evangelical church. When not dancing like dervishes at church raves – the music pounds, “God” and “Love” flash up on gigantic screens – they take part in church-run therapy sessions extolling the virtues of “divine love” and celebrating the sanctity of the forever-marriage. And when not doing either of those things they’re taking part in church-sanctioned swinging sessions with new members (for want of a better word) of the congregation.
Joana’s day job is working as a registrar for births, marriages and deaths. The state is secular, a creepily omniscient child’s voiceover informs us. But, the voice continues, “Joana has other plans”. At work, when members of the public rock up to her desk with divorce papers, she quietly tries to talk them out of it. Sometimes she succeeds, and winds up with a recruit for her church. Or she fails and winds up being upbraided (again!) by her boss for overstepping the mark.
At home it turns out that Danilo has lousy semen and is doing everything he can to give it an assist – sun lamps while lying on an inverter table, mostly. Joana is wound tighter than a spring because she’s at the wrong end of her 30s. Maybe that’s why she joined the church in the first place. In prayers muttered increasingly despairingly, Joana asks God to send her a sign. And in a plot twist that echoes Debbie Tucker Green’s vastly underrated Second Coming, the deity eventually complies. Does this sound like sci-fi to you?
In Neon Bull one of Mascaro’s lead characters had a fascination for making women’s clothes and turned out to be gay. Here, Joana’s husband runs a flower business and spends much of his time fiddling with blossoms. Are we meant to make anything of that? Mascaro drops it in as a thought and then retreats.
Another similarity between the two films is the extraordinarily frank approach to sex. The sex was done for real in the earlier film, or so some people suggested, and looks pretty realistic this time around too.
Mascaro is particularly interested in hermetic communities. The itinerant rodeo crowd in Neon Bull, religious zealots here, and how apartness amplifies idiosyncrasy. Joana channels her energy into persuading people not to divorce because it matches the credo of her faith, but it also scratches a personal itch.
Mascaro paints evangelical christianity as personally and politically powerful though he clearly is sceptical. Its claims to an unmediated connection to God, for example – there’s always a pastor of some description on hand to “guide” and “interpret”. And for all their fierce connection to the church of Divine Love, Joana and Danilo seem to be lonely and disconnected people only dimly aware (if at all) that joining the church has probably done them no favours at all. Playing them, Dira Paes and Julio Machado resist the urge to hand us emotional connection. The situation is febrile but Paes and Machado are cool intermediaries.
Mascaro remains an utterly distinctive film-maker but for me Neon Bull has the edge on Divino Amor. Mystery shrouds it and makes it compelling. Here, too much is explained and though most of it turns out to be bogus, it still takes some wading through.
Divine Love – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
