November December

Moving house ranks high on the list of life’s most stressful experiences, along with having a baby. Combine both at the same time and you have a recipe for tunnel vision, relationship trauma and escapism. This is what happens to an artist couple that moves from São Paulo to a little village straight after the birth of their first child. On the face of it, the peace and quiet is wonderful, but the village soon starts to feel isolated. The days are filled with chores, complaints about humidity and lice, and above all silences about the man’s obvious reluctance to be there. And he leaves too, on the pretext of needing to finish a film. The couple vents their unspoken resentments in the voice-over. Animation adds a layer of surrealism, as the couple’s inner lives, their doubts and fears entwine with reality. In this portrait of a doomed relationship, the atmosphere is as hallucinatory as it is oppressive.