Culture Watch: Motel Destino

Set on the coast of Ceará in Brazil's north-east, Motel Destino is the latest project from prolific filmmaker, Karim Aïnouz.

After botching a job for the drug boss he works for, Heraldo (Iago Xavier) is on the run and takes refuge at Motel Destino - a neon-soaked by-the-hour hotel catering to short-term sexual encounters.

Motel Destino is run by Elias (Fábio Assunção) and his wife Dayana (Nataly Rocha) - a ticking time-bomb of a couple that Heraldo naively ends up in the middle of.

Destiny is a theme that is front-and-centre in this melodrama. Heraldo is seeking to escape his, whereas Dayana aspires to manifest hers.

The tourist-town on the edge of which these characters exist feels a world away from everyday life in Brazil. Out here, it's the wild west (or north-east, to be geographically accurate) - the normal rules don't apply.

These are damaged people - their lives shaped by abuse and the precarious economics of living life outside of the law.

As a business, Motel Destino throbs with sex. Porn plays on the in-room TVs, moans and groans of pleasure echo through the building at all hours of the day and night, the air is filled with pheromones.I t's a heady cocktail which leaves the uber-fuckable Heraldo thinking with his dick, not his head.

Motel Destino is a well-told tale with a strong visual aesthetic and plenty of dark humour, but what holds our attention is the central trio of performances from Xavier, Assunção, and Rocha - delivering a rawness in their characters that conveys their unpredictability, trapped in a corner, their fight-or-flight mode kicking in.

Worth a watch.