Milo (2023 film)

Milo
Theatircal release poster
Directed by	Enzio Lodovico
Written by	Débora Luz Enzio Lodovico Enzio Romão
Screenplay by	Débora Luz
Produced by	Olegário Resende Enzio Lodovico Raúl Azevedo
Starring	Jacinto Simões Irene Nascimento Osvaldo Branão Marcelino Gomes Maiara Resende
Cinematography	Egídio Venâncio
Music by	Kévim Vila
Production companies	Remfilmes Sagrado Cinema
Distributed by	RS Media
Release dates	24 October, 2023 (84th Montecara Film Festival) 20 November, 2023 (Worldwide)
Running time	178 minutes
Country	Ardesia
Language	Luzelese
Budget	€4.5 million
Box office	€1.2 million

Milo, is a 2023 Ardesian drama-film directed by Enzio Lodovico. Débora Luz wrote the initial screenplay based on Rocco Dirce's 1897 story with same name. The movie stars child actor Jacinto Simões, Irene Nascimento, Osvaldo Branão, Marcelino Gomes, and Maiara Resende. Many of the actors are native to historically similar neighborhoods such as Trinidade and Vigilância.

Being a modern twist on Rocco Dirce's 1897 novel Milo, the film takes place in the aftermath of the 2001 Méndi earthquake which catapults a young boy, Milo, into a new reality. Starting with the harsh adjustments of catholic school Milo suffers from frequent drug withdrawal, to which he's forced to confront his past with counselling, putting him back in the gang conflict in the city. The film plays a non-linear plot with multiple flashbacks as it starts.

The film was premiered on 24 October at the 84th Montecara Film Festival nominated for a Béco aùreo, with an international release set for 20 November, 2023.

Plot

The film begins with Milo, a 13-year-old, struggling from drug withdrawal in a shabby restroom in a sweating panic. Milo would take a hard silent glimpse at the room soaking in his situation. He would slowly reintroduce himself to the class, revealing to us it’s a catholic school housing troubled kids. As the day progresses, the schedule reaches their recess. A match of chausse is played with Milo begrudgingly playing with his team against their peers. Milo is seemingly teased by the players on the opposing team, with their references to a man by the name of Couro. As a penalty kick is coordinated to break a tie against the opponent team, a brawl quickly converges at the center. Many of the kids including Milo are brought to the school counselor individually to discuss their behavioral issues. Milo is reminded of his previous personal issues of adapting to the new school, including his avoidance of his peers and issues sleeping. Milo would reveal to the teacher he has an issue adapting due to his guilt, and ruminating on the past months. The fear of what he’ll tell the counselor, Lucinda, will remove the veneer of his youth to reveal a monster. With a previous life of relative innocence, it brings him constant reminders of now. Milo is consoled by Lucinda who tells him the opportunity of his renewed life with Sotiras can offer redemption, and that he shouldn’t be endlessly weighed by events of the past. Lucinda expresses that his mother and brother would’ve wanted that for him. Dismissed, Milo would carry on his classes before the last set of recess at dawn. A confrontation emerges against the previous groups of boys referring to the earlier fight. Milo, while tearfully annoyed, defends the events of earlier and attempts to skirt away to the living quarters. Immediately as he closes the door, he buries himself in his bed before the continuing sounds of the crowd carry toward him. As the audio blurs, we’re taken to a dream sequence.

Milo enjoys the skyline of Méndi, seemingly floating in his perspective as he descends to his mother on the ground, joyfully telling her he saw a motmot. A quick crashing crescendo of guttural barks would glide Milo back to a squatter abode. A pack of street dogs would be at Milo’s feet as they close in. Milo attempts to shoo the pack away, though he’s quickly overwhelmed by them. He barely manages to escape, though sustains injuries from the running and the dogs. As he’s displaced, he takes an aimless walk through a hopelessly scenic cityscape with the title and credits. Throughout the ruined slums, it’s inferred from the collapsed buildings he’s in the aftermath of an earthquake that struck Méndi. The resultant effects of the earthquake had forced a humanitarian crisis, as well as the escalation of violence. A drug war between two rival gangs, Trinidade (“Trinity”), and Família do Golfo (“Gulf Family”), is audible throughout the panned walk’s soundscape with gunshots. Milo is offered to abuse drugs by the displaced homeless people and refuses the offer. A military vehicle quickly passes him as they delve further to raid gang territory, causing him to rethink his current aimless path throughout the city. Milo nears the sight of a looted corner store, before taking part and receiving only morsels of snacks. Dawn approaches and the city enters a cascade of darkness. Milo attempts to retreat away from the urban jungle and nears shrubland before being caught by a section of thieving kids part of the Trinidade street gang. One of the members includes two familiar boys named “Bru”, and “Tchelo”. Unable to escape, he’s quickly questioned if he's a Golfo member due to their similar press-ganging of children. Bru, being a classmate in a previous school year of Milo’s, reveals he isn’t. Milo is asked if he fled home from his mother, though it’s cut to the initial discovery of Milo’s mother being held under the rubble already dead from the initial earthquake. Milo would go into a squat looking at the destruction sight as emergency vehicles passed him frantically. He simply denies he fled home, and quickly he’s taken under the street gang's wing. Milo is led into the fray of Trindade’s activity in an apartment complex functioning as a drug distribution stronghold, barely intact from the damage of the earthquake. Milo is quickly likened by one of the gang’s managers, Couro, due to his brother's relation to the group. To his immediate reminder, his mother has always discouraged his brother's place in the gang from a sequence of memories as he takes a rest. One memory includes his mother discovering Milo’s fascination with Mígui’s unloaded revolver in the home, tearfully promising he doesn’t repeat the same mistakes as Mígui. He internalizes his fixation his mother won’t agree on in avenging Mígui, in which he’s conflicted on how it’ll work. Away from the memory, Milo is promised the initiation into the group would come immediately tomorrow.

As he slowly takes rest he would further remember the night of his brother’s murder. Milo flashes to the memory of his brother attempting to escape the opposing Golfo gang. His escape fails as they eventually catch up to their house where his mother attempts to hide Milo from the trouble. Their retaliation came after Mígui had been part of a scuffle against one of the aligning members for their drugs. Quickly, it escalates into a gunfight after his brother is seen raising his revolver. The gang returns fire causing a barrage of bullets into their home. The group leaves as Milo sees his mother attempt to resuscitate his lifeless brother, putting his attention to the revolver he failed to use. Milo wakes up the next morning being presented with the task of gang initiation, which includes the use of brown-brown and the robbing of an occupant in Golfo territory. The initiation is stressed with the note of not killing them. Being pressured into snorting the drug, they make an incursion into enemy territory. Milo is handed a ghost gun as the group jumps a pair of assuming similar-aged boys, unknowing if they're members or not. The group only robs them of their football and a small bag of crack, which Milo is forced to carry. They start their escape before the distant yelling and nearby cracks of gunfire hit them. The apparent successful robbery is celebrated with the use of the football in a game of chausse in the center of the complex. Milo would decide to spectate the game before being approached by Couro’s girlfriend, Nália. To his surprise the girl tells Milo she was an initiated member, however, she reveals it happened through a sex-in. Although a full-initiated member, it’s clear she isn’t respected among the ranks of the gang, and not even by Couro. As the night goes on, he’s given marijuana to celebrate his initiation. While the evening continues to be active, Nália later takes in Milo for the night, hinting at his first sexual experience and the loss of his virginity.

Separate from the previous events, Milo would suffer another drug withdrawal in the boarding school, attracting more attention than previously. Remaining glued to the bed, he thrashes in beads of sweat, quickly being assisted out of the living quarters. Two assistants would guide him to the shower to temporarily treat the withdrawal, before being taken out of the rest of the day for his medical emergency. As he’s reintroduced her to Lucinda, she attempts to congratulate Milo on his strength in temporarily overcoming today’s drug withdrawal, which he lukewarmly receives. Lucinda furthers it by telling Milo she’s had similar cases of drug abuse due to their gang affiliation, reminding him he’s not alone in his struggle. She would recite the cases of other students vying to return to the lifestyle they’ve sheltered from the boys, even being successful in their escapes and disappearing into the ghettos. Lucinda speculates to Milo that there could’ve been further implications to the use of drugs, to which Milo would try reasoning that it helped with his performance. Lucinda earnestly approaches it from a different angle, suspecting it can come from the attempt to fill the vacuum created by the recent events. Milo tearfully wells from the recollection of the night of the earthquake. Milo’s mother, Maria, tells Milo of her quick exit from the house for dende oil before he quickly scouts the house for the unloaded revolver to play with. Minutes after his search in her mother’s bedroom, he snoops her makeshift shrine for Mígui until he finds the revolver. He cautiously handles the revolver and draws it as he looks into the mirror. To his poor attempt, Maria discovers Milo’s panicked hiding of the revolver and ensues into a violent fight. Recounting the previous confrontation of the revolver, Maria devolves into an emotional breakdown saying she doesn’t want another son making a ‘stupid’ mistake. Milo quickly assumes the worst out of what she said and attempts to reason for his fixation on the weapon to avenge Mígui, for which she says it won’t do any good, and that he’s already dead. Milo tearfully calls her a helpless bitch before fleeing the home. As he runs away from home within the favela the sunset slowly closes towards night, hiding away at a boteco. Slowly starving on the food he can’t afford from his own pocket, he struggles to come to terms with returning home immediately, though it’s interrupted by an ensuing 12 seconds of an earthquake rocking the ground. As a new reality settles in Milo hears the residue of sounds of the injured, car alarms, and barking. In a panic, he vies for the safety of his mother, wanting to return home, he treks past the wreckage and immediately debris and casualties toward his home.

In the streets, Milo abuses substances with Bru and Tchelo, one of them bragging about the food they stole from an aid truck. As they further hang within their territory they pass by the earthquake ruins, seemingly ignoring the numerous unrecovered dead bodies and wandering pedestrians. Bru espouses his desire to move up the ranks within Trinidade to pair near Couro. Tchelo jokes with him that he’d do that to have sex with Nália. Milo quickly chimes to say he already beat him to it, though neither believe him. For why, Bru says if he did both of them would be dead already. Their banter is slowly interrupted as they’re outed by a passing car of Golfo members. From early teens to men, they quickly exit the car to club them with blunt weapons and rob them. The trio is unsuccessful as they’re carried away from the public eye and are cornered. One member makes a call out to the football they need back. As they back off, one member revealed to be named Drico wields a handgun to confront who had taken it, before their foot is shot. All of them tear up as none of them want to snitch before the man randomly shoots Tchelo’s foot. Another younger member is forced to handle a gun and ordered to kill one of them before succumbing to the stress and killing Bru. Milo and Tchelo are left off, forced to leave behind Bru as Milo carries Tchelo back to the safer end of their territory. Alerting members of the gang including Couro, would ensure retaliation, leaving no time to grieve for either the boys. As the week carried on, a spike in violence would occur between the rival gangs before the entire conflict muddied into the typical vying for gun and drug trafficking. A montage would view various incidents of fighting and arson, many of which force Milo to take life as vengeance. The mounting casualties on the Trinidade’s would get to Couro to Milo’s witness, as a stunt to acquire supplies out of shortages done against government-provided aid. The disastrous crossfire eventually brings the military and police in as a belligerent to curb the gang violence.

One incident in looting government aid led to their group's brief arrest in the streets before being bribed into releasing them, costing a sum of their money. Couro curses the damage the war brought him in his confines, audibly heard. In the complex, higher-ups and Couro strategize what to do next. With many of their members killed and the trickle of motivated ‘soldiers’ slowing to a crawl, it brings a question to Nália’s purpose in the gang. Promising further escalation in hold-ups against civilians and business is hardly a promise with the conditions the earthquake brought. This unsatisfied Nália, telling Couro the stalwart devotion to the gang will wear away before finally deprived of goods. Couro dismisses Nália by pistol-whipping her, before trying to carry on to ease his nerves with a chausse game. Nália would be left to cry in the now empty confines as Milo watches the crowd form for chausse. Milo fearfully confesses to Tchelo whether they surrender to the police in the chance of freedom from the gang war, as it hasn’t brought any satisfaction from either of their grief. Tchelo tells Milo it wouldn’t do any good to them or the gang to surrender. Expressing this at the end of his spouting, he’d rather ride to the climax of this giving him a premature death for Trinidade. The idea is buried with Milo, as Tchelo joins in to play chausse for morale. The focus is back in the Catholic school as classes go on, though Milo slacks in his academic work and is kept awake at night. At dark, Milo witnesses a few boys discuss escaping, wanting to become the new bosses in the power vacuum left by the police raids before being caught awake. He enters Luncida’s office for weekly counseling. Milo is asked about his relationship with God over the past months. He cites he didn’t have one and wondered if God had been merely watching this all happen, including his actions. Lucinda tells Milo he intervened to save you from a further life of trouble, though Milo quickly relapses in what occurred. The complex continues to float towards a dilapidated state. A helicopter flies overhead while Milo spots the neighborhood balconies for any passersby with Tchelo. Milo would randomly tell Tchelo a thought, that he hasn’t remembered what his mother sounded like. A distant gunshot is audible within the complex and brings both of their attention. As they force themselves to the site of the gunfire they see the body of Couro. They approach the murder done seemingly by Nália as she attempts to flee, before the quick arrival of the other higher-ups react with a hail of gunfire, killing her. The immediate processions for Marecco follow his burial near the shrubland, while Nália’s body is quickly discarded and dropped in the streets.

Untimely, the helicopter that had passed over them would quickly center over their territory. A convoy of armored police vehicles soon closes in, holding up the area. Armed members quickly engage with the police, while Milo scrambles to cover as the forces return fire. Milo crawls to possess a firearm from one of the dead members nearby, shakily holding it while pointing the gun to his head, though quickly throws it away. As silence presides over the aftermath of gunfire, Milo and Tchelo are grabbed by the police. Milo focuses his gaze back to Lucinda welling up tears, wishing he should’ve died then and there. Milo then tells Lucinda he wants to be reminded of once being a good boy, only belonging to a mother who loved him, and reflects the school is a reminder of what wounded him there. Lucinda silently stares at Milo with condolence telling him he has a chance, and not to relapse to what led him here alas Tchelo, who was revealed to be one of the boys who managed to escape the school. The final scene would dismiss Milo from the office, arriving at the chausse field, finally intent on joining in their game.