Review: SAILING, The Cockpit

Prince is in his late twenties, lives by the sea, and still goes by the old nickname his mum gave him when he was little. He was raised to be a sensitive and delicate man, one who - by his own admission - always had the tendency to become "one of the girls". Duarte Bandeira writes and plays a sweet and funny character who struggles to fit in a world that demands him to be "a real man" - whatever that means.

His frustrations, combined with the recent death of his mother, pile up when he enters the dating game. Rejection after rejection in the conservative coastal town make him hate his vulnerability, and what he thought was his strength becomes something he needs to change with force. He joins a gym, starts to hang out with his old school bullies, and going by his real name, Felipe.

There's a certain kind of melancholic sweetness in Bandeira's sophisticated and profound storytelling. His descriptions of the picturesque locations are vivid and captivating, evocative of the acute loneliness that overwhelms Prince and wrapped up in elegant and polished style. Directed by Julia-Maria Arnolds, Sailing really is an exploration of masculinity, femininity, and their place in a cruel system: Prince finds it hard to conciliate his nature with the societal expectations thrusted upon him by the environment he inhabits.

The struggle with his identity is magnified by the aggressive masculinity he willfully accepts to gain. The romantic vein of a sensitive man gets forcefully erased by the harsh demands of the universe of machos, which is emblematic of a larger issue. Bandeira is charismatic in his portrayal of the likeable man and Arnolds's direction makes good use of lighting and space, moving Bandeira and flooding him with lights to have him enter the different levels of the story.

Bandeira leaves the ending rather open to interpretation and eventually, Sailing becomes an ode to being fascinated with the world and a celebration of one's identity.

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