Taking place in a world of transgressive gay criminality, Madame Satã is a fascinating study of gay identity politics.
According to the opening police records, real-life gay folk hero João Francisco was "a passive pederast who shaves his eyebrows. He smokes, gambles and is addicted to alcohol. He has no religion."
He was also a transvestite, petty criminal, capoeira martial arts expert, and a cabaret singer who became an overnight sensation in the dead-end bars of Rio de Janeiro.
Instead of canonising Francisco (Lazaro Ramos) as a gay icon, Karim Aïnouz's unusual biopic focuses instead on his grubby existence in the city's slums. Here he lives with an alternative family comprised of transvestite Taboo (Flavio Bauraqui), prostitute Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo), and her baby daughter.
Hamstrung by the double misfortune of being gay and black in a viciously repressive society, João's a raging whirlwind of hair-trigger violence and muscular sexuality. He's so tightly wound his life is a never-ending gamut of passionately angry sex in darkened hallways, and pointless fights where his nimble-footed capoeira expertise quickly betrays the lie that a gay man can't be a "real" man.
"You're like a wild animal banging your head against the wall," comments Laurita as he paces the cage of Rio's slums like a ferocious lion, furious simply because he's alive. Not even the arrival of Renato (Vitoria dos Anjos), a stubble-chinned Jean-Paul Gaultier-esque model of handsome virility who's eager to learn how to fight, can save Jao from himself.
The only moments of peace are when he's pounding the stage as cabaret singer Madame Satã. But it's an act that literally unmans him, leading to unexpected tragedy as he reneges on his belief that "a real man uses his fists".
