The seedier areas of the Brazilian state of Bahia are the locales of “Lower City,” and the portrait that emerges seems authentic and strongly felt. It’s the main attraction of a movie that otherwise treads some conventional turf.
The film is based on the durable device of the triangle. Best friends Naldinho and Deco operate a grimy little transport boat, and they vow never to let a woman interfere with their friendship. They declare it so forcefully, in fact, that you get the feeling a femme fatale must be right around the corner.
She’s Karinna, a stripper who’s just about the right speed for the boys. She wants a ride to the city of Salvador, and trades her body for a trip on their boat.
The best scenes come early in the film, as Naldinho and Deco get mixed up in a bloody brawl after a cockfight. Karinna helps in the aftermath, and pretty soon both men fall hopelessly in love with her.
The first-time director, Sergio Machado, is a protg of “Motorcycle Diaries” director Walter Salles, and co-wrote Salles’ film “Behind the Sun.” Machado gets all the grime and the choking atmosphere right, and the three main actors are compelling.
Wagner Moura and Lazaro Ramos are just offbeat enough to work as the best friends; the former is white and the latter black, a racial mix that doesn’t matter at all in the film’s story. (Apparently Machado intended to cast the film with black actors, but saw the real-life chemistry between these two and went with it.)
The woman who comes between them is played by Alice Braga, who had a role in the hit Brazilian film “City of God.” She’s also the niece of celebrated actress Sonia Braga, though with her blond hair and lean body the family resemblance isn’t immediately apparent.
The movie is being sold as a sultry, sexy drama, although the sex is usually more desperate than titillating. And after the first half-hour or so, Machado lets the film trail off into repetitive variations on the three characters feeling guilty about loving each other, as they sink deeper into the criminal underside of Salvador. This may be the stuff of real, gritty life in Bahia, but it’s not the stuff of drama.
A scene from “Lower City.”
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