'Olmo & the Seagull' movie review

Great Brazilian actors, lot of emotion, thoughtful script. We should all try understand what it is to be a mother.

"Yesterday, I had a loose tooth. A friend said, 'That's normal, the baby needs calcium. During pregnancy, women often lose teeth.' I laughed at the thought of such an uneven deal. A life for a tooth. But the casual way she said it troubled me, as if it were no big deal to give parts of yourself. When I think of myself as a mother, the fear comes... because I don't know how to do it... I want to go out, I want to go out... I feel like there's an alien in my belly, feeding on me, imposing the rules of the game."

The game is life and life isn't a game.

A theatre actress, on the brink of the success she has long worked for, is faced with the dilemma of pregnancy. The world, both chauvinistic and conformatively female, expects pregnancy to be mentally normal. But it isn't. A baby can expand life or erode it - the decision to grow a child or abort it, or trade our life for another, is something us males can never fully understand.

'Olmo and the Seagull' is positively feminist in refusing to conform. It presents the seeming impossibility of being woman.

Directed by Petra Costa and Lea Glob, it's the aforementioned that made me find it. Costa made one of my favourite documentaries, 'Edge of Democracy'(2019). Despite involving gritty politics and corruption, I sometimes felt like I was floating with a view of the madness of men below. That led me to her earlier documentary, 'Elena', about her missing sister - another discombobulation, making me surreal whilst marrying me with down-to-earth sadness.

I wanted more but it took me two years to find 'Olmo & the Seagull'. It may not stand equal with pregnancy masters such as 'Ninjababy' (Norway) and '4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 days' (Romania), but it exceeds its small budget with a contemplative script and good actors (Olivia Corsini and Serge Nicolai).

Unlike Costa's documentaries, I found no ambiguity. It makes us men more women, and women human. As children, we should all try understand what it is to be a mother.

Let my talk of Petra Costa not ignore co-director Lea Glob who recently released ‘Apolonia, Apolonia’. I look forward to viewing it.