When you have a body that needs disposing,
you would want to call in Pulp Fiction’s
Winston Wolfe. Unfortunately, an aging party girl like Iris will have to make
do with an estranged friend with some dodgy connections. She might not realize the
gravity of her situation in Pedro Severien’s All the Colors of the Night, which screens during the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival.
During the long prologue, Iris gives us
her version of Tiara’s story. She killed a man, but got off scot-free, thanks
to her mother’s influential friends. However, the man Tiara killed sort of had
it coming—and she did not exactly live happily ever after. Regardless, Iris
apparently intends to avoid prosecution just as Tiara did. Frankly, she has no
idea who the dead man on her floor might be or how he got that way. She vaguely
remembers him giving her the eye during her party, but the rest is a drug and
alcohol-enhanced blur.
Clearly, Iris hopes Fernanda can call in a
fixer who can make her mess go away. It is also clear their friendship has
largely been a one-way street, for reasons of race and class. Initially,
Fernanda seems inclined to help the rich, white Iris once again, but old
grievances start to surface in the third act. The should-have-been-anticipated
arrival of Iris’s even more resentful maid Elga also holds destabilizing consequences.
Despite some surface similarities, All the Colors of the Night should absolutely
not be confused with the notorious Bruce Willis vehicle The Color of Night. However, they both require a great deal of
viewer patience, albeit in very different ways. Severien’s obliquely askew
approach is somewhat akin to that of Qiu Yang’s Slamdance short, Under the Sun, but it lacks the darkly
humanistic sensibility.
Regardless, Brenda Lígia is quite impressive as Fernanda, keeping us consistently
off-balance throughout the relatively short feature (seventy minutes). For her
part, Sabrina Greve’s Iris looks and sounds convincingly zonked out on
whatever. They both also have photogenic legs, which is important, because that
is mainly what Severien focuses on.
