Film: My Friend From Faro
Year of production: 2008
UK Release date: 16th May 2011
Distributor: Peccadillo
Certificate: 15
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Nana Neul
Starring: Anjorka Strechel, Lucie Hollmann, Manuel Cortez, Florian Panzner, Tilo Prückner
Genre: Drama
Format: DVD
Country of Production: German
Language: Germany/Portuguese
Review by: Loz Bridge
My Friend From Faro is the debut feature from German director Nana Nuel. A love story concerned with complex and very modern issues of gender and sexuality. Girl meets boy, boy turns out to be girl, problems ensue…
Slacker Mel spends her days daydreaming through her job in a catering factory, and at night heads into town to spend her evenings clubbing. It is a routine existence, until one night Mel’s world is turned upside down when 14-year-old Jenny and her friend literally crash into her life - she believes she has knocked her down in her car.
After spending the evening together clubbing, Mel and Jenny become close and begin an intense romance, with one problem: Jenny believes Mel, with her cropped hair, bulky physique and masculine manner, to be a boy. Enraptured with the relationship and the confusing throws of first love, Mel does nothing to set her straight.
To explain her strange behaviour to her own family, Mel persuades Nuno - a Portuguese colleague from her work for whom she has developed a platonic crush - to meet her family and pose as her boyfriend. As the liaison continues and intensifies, however, the subterfuge begins to fall apart, and just as Mel’s family begin to suspect that all is not as it seems, Jenny struggles to justify to her disapproving mother and best friend the nature of her strange new ‘boyfriend’. Mel and Jenny must face the reactionary prejudices of those closest to them as their relationship becomes more and more dangerous…
It is inevitable that My Friend From Faro will be compared to Kimberly Peirce’s 1999 film Girls Don’t Cry. Although the film claims no official connection with its American counterpart, the similarities in plot and theme are impossible to ignore. Fortunately, the two films share other, positive attributes, such as a tremendous performance in the lead role. Hilary Swank carried Girls Don’t Cry, whereas here Anjorka Strechel is mesmerising to watch, an incredibly confident and assured performance from the young actress as Mel. At first prickly and defensive, as the film progresses and Mel struggles to factor the new blossoming relationship into her routine life, it is heartbreaking to watch cracks form in her hard outer shell, as we realise Mel is experiencing the bittersweet pangs of young love, intensified by an impossible situation. Aside from Strechel, My Friend From Faro benefits from a raft of excellent performances; quite an achievement considering the very young age of some of the actors, particularly Lucie Hollmann as Jenny, and Isolda Dychauk as her friend Bianca. Manuel Cortez also broods as the enigmatic Nuno.
It is a shame that the climax, when it comes, sadly falls a little flat. Again it is difficult not to think of the explosive ending to Girls Don’t Cry, and here everything about the setup feels as if we are being led towards the same brutal conclusion. The relationship is a tragedy, doomed from the offset, and with the over-protectiveness of Jenny’s mother, and the bitter jealousy of her best friend, it is inevitable that Mel’s secret cannot be kept forever. We all know what’s coming; it’s just a case of when and how. In My Friend From Faro, however, when it comes, it is as though Nuel has lost her nerve at the last minute, and the somewhat underwhelming outcome comes across with muted emotional impact. Possibly in the shadow of what could have been, we are left wondering, what was this all for?
My Friend From Faro should definitely be praised for its maturity, and it is certainly an extraordinarily confident and assured first feature. The direction is unfussy and grounded, the narrative clear and focused. It does not sensationalise, or delight in its subject matter, but tells a very classic story of young lovers divided by circumstance. Mel is not presented as a caricature, or an object for scrutiny, but a rounded, developed character, hardened by experience, defensive, confused and struggling to find her place in the world. This is most definitely Mel’s story. The issue of her gender – while certainly a plot device - is never treated with voyeuristic analysis, more as an accepted element of her personality, and it is more the world around her which is under analysis. It is fascinating, and great storytelling.
In its execution, My Friend From Faro is faultless, full of genuine, compassionate performances and sensitively handles its subject. It is essentially, though, a small tale of small events taking place in a small community, and for all its laudable qualities will never quite set the world alight the same as its American big brother/sister. LB
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