Saturday, July 17, 2004
1. In a middle urban area of Rio, ______________ sleeps. All quiet in the front street. The birds, the trash trucks picking up the garbage, random neighbor morning sounds, all speak in harmony, and so the day starts.
2. In Joe’s window the sun soon starts to appear and as he bends to the side he is blinded and warmly touched by the almost harmful sun in his face and uncovered body parts. Around his room certain items witness his struggle of waking up and making the light factor the determinant to make him open his eyes. Among them there are piles and piles of magazines, candy raps, and many other vast amounts of unnecessary and unusual material. Soon he opens his eyes and turns to see the window. He takes a quick glance at the room, he stretches and then holding the remote control he turns on the stereo across the room and gets out of bed. He then follows to get ready to go out apparently.
3. Joe takes a bath and as he goes into the shower the touches the tales in odd sequences. One begins to feel that Joe may not be entirely “average”.
4. He starts to get dressed (still with the music playing in the back) and it then becomes clear that he will be doing physical activity. He moans while sitting on the bed and then stands up, grabs the keys, cell phone and wallet and leaves home.
5. We see him leave his house jogging and he fades into the dense streets.
6. At Lagoa we see him do several exercises as he sees and stares at women and random people as well.
7. He gets on a “bondinho” with a Coco Gelado in his hands and goes around for sometime apparently around the Lagoa.
8. Later on he goes to the beach. Wearing shorts, a T-Shirt and sunglasses he enters the sand and lays down taking off his shirt and getting a book from his bag. Once again he keeps on staring at people and from time to time he even makes comments out loud.
9. Joe then starts walking his way back home through the streets. When doing so he passes a nearby mental institution (hospital). He presses the bell switch on the door but it seems pointless, no one answers. He then sees a sign indicating it is closed at the time.
10.We see him return home and noticing that nearby his house all windows are closed, the streets seem oddly quite empty and in fact he passes by the side a friend who seems to be wearing some sort of pajamas and a flashlight. They have a brief conversation in which the fact that Joe is working out seems to the neighbor as something amazing and remarkably committed which as said by him inspires him to do the same and not being lazy. To this Joe answers nothing but a comment about the laziness of his neighbor since he is wearing pajamas, etc.
11.He goes home and lies down on the couch. He turns on the TV, but apparently all channels are out of the air. The channels show the same screen message indicating their airing schedule that appears once the daily transmission has ended. He interprets this as a mere problem of reception in the antenna as checks the wires, but the will of fixing it soon vanishes and he goes to get the phone. He dials a number which he seems to know by hard but no one answers. He dials again, and once again no one answers. Joe then decides to grab his stuff (the same items he took early that day to work out and go out) and leaves home.
12.He leaves driving and we see him arrive at another house. The doorman is sleeping but awakes once Joe starts hitting the window with the hand and car key.
13.The doorman recognizes him and asks him if he should call, but Joe responds saying that is not necessary and he gets into he elevator.
14.He gets out of the elevator and rings the bell, then he waits for a while, but no one answers, then he rings it again. This time he hears some noises as of someone opening the inside locks of the door. A Couple opens the door in pajamas once again and apparently still tired, it is clear they just woke-up. They then stats talking. Joe insists on going out and them not being lazy, they answer back by saying it is nonsense and that there is no problem in sleeping at such times. The conversation goes on, but it soon becomes clear they will, under no circumstances go out, and once it becomes obvious to Joe he decides to leave.
15.On his way back he finds the doorman sleeping once again, so he opens and closes the door himself. Joe then gets into the car and drives away.
16.Now, at home, sitting on the couch again seems to be terribly bored. He then looks to his side and sees his guitar lying there…
17.From the outside we see the house in between the two neighbor houses and all we hear is a sudden sound that seems like an electric matter. Then, the guitar starts playing with distortion. Still, seeing the house (could be apartment) in between the other two we see a man leave the next door house, knock on Joe’s and wait outside. The door opens and he goes inside. Some seconds later the neighbor leaves the house, closing the door himself and we can no longer hear the guitar. Suddenly Joe screams loudly complaining for everything concerning how everyone has become so lazy and all people and friends can think of is sleeping.
18.We now go into the house again to see him angry sitting on the bed next to the guitar. He then decides to go to sleep since he changes clothes, and prepares everything to do so. When lying back in bed he takes some seconds to align he pillow in parallel with all sides. He then lays back over it. But again he raises and arranges the position of the pillow. He does this a third time after some seconds again. As he turns to the side to sleep the camera once again does the same type of shot showing his room and he sleeping. The camera then shows the magazines and papers stored all around his house, then the bathroom and the bathroom tales and then it starts zooming back to Joe. As the zoom gets closer and closer to him we see his head, and then the camera zooms in a bit more, and then gets in focus a white object in his night table next to his bed. The object becomes a sharp image and one is able to read the side of the bottle; it is a mental disorder stabilizer drug.
19.With him still sleeping the phone starts to ring but just after the first ring the answering machine takes the call. It is the nurse from the clinic from the Hospital he had walked by early that day once again asking him to go to pick up his pills which he has not done in weeks. She tries to make him to come to his senses and the nurse reminds him once again that they are open everyday, but only during the morning. She then steps off from hey professional tone and talks to him more personally and says that she knows how much he hates and refuses to go out or do anything at all during the day but he should, otherwise he will never get the drugs (medicine). At that point (the camera had been fixed on the answering machine only) Joe’s hand appears to stop the machine, get the phone and in an angry tone he responds that he is cured, and has tried to say so for weeks, but the clinic is always closed.
20.In open and close fade style all locations where he was at during the day are shown exactly the same, with only one difference, it is all dark. (All the moments when he made out loud comments, or when he was reading the book, riding the bondinho and drinking the coco are shown under the moon)
21.He appears sitting on a bondinho with a “closed” coco in his hands. And not only is the Coco naturally closed, but the bondinho is tied to the pier with all the other ones and he is just pedaling on land alone looking around.
22.Then, all locations where he interacted and talked to someone are shown dark as well, including the neighbor he encountered with pajamas, which is now doing the same but in the middle of the night.
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Potro's
2003 B-Day (23-08-03) (Courtesy of Ana)
Ipanema
Plaza (02-10-04)