O Fantasma (2000)

25% of critics liked it
(16 reviews)
49% of users liked it
(1,122 ratings)

Shot almost entirely at night, O Fantasma chronicles a young trash collector's descent into a world of increasingly bizarre sexual encounters. Sergio (Ricardo Meneses) spends his days living in a run-down rented room, engaging in anonymous sex and trying to rebuff the advances of his co-worker… More Shot almost entirely at night, O Fantasma chronicles a young trash collector's descent into a world of increasingly bizarre sexual encounters. Sergio (Ricardo Meneses) spends his days living in a run-down rented room, engaging in anonymous sex and trying to rebuff the advances of his co-worker Fatima (Beatriz Torcato). Unfulfilled by his daily sexcapades, Sergio finally gets turned on by a Tom of Finland-esque motorcyclist (Andre Barbosa), whose physical beauty becomes the source of Sergio's obsession. Sergio stalks him, eventually donning bondage gear and making the motorcyclist his love prisoner. After having his brutish way with his comely captive, Sergio vanishes into the night and prowls the city's garbage dumps in a phantasmic odyssey of sexual dysfunction and cruelty. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 30 min.
Directed By: João Pedro Rodriguez, João Pedro Rodrigues
Written By: João Pedro Rodrigues, Jose Neves, Paulo Rebelo, Alexandre Melo
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Jan 1, 2001 Wide
On DVD: Nov 4, 2003

Critic Reviews

Charles Ealy, Dallas Morning News
It's clear that director Rodrigues has a future as a provocateur. But you may want to decide whether to spend an evening being provoked -- and possibly perplexed. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
Michael Booth, Denver Post
Often looks like explicit gay pornography thinly disguised as high art.
John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
The gay audience you'd expect the movie to pander to will likely be dismayed by its depraved view of homosexuality.
Ellen Fox, Chicago Tribune
Despite a couple of memorable scenes, it's boring when it's not kinky.
Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
O Fantasma is boldly, confidently orchestrated, aesthetically and sexually, and its impact is deeply and rightly disturbing.
A.O. Scott, New York Times
Imagine (if possible) a Pasolini film without passion or politics, or an Almodovar movie without beauty or humor, and you have some idea of the glum, numb experience of watching O Fantasma.
Don Willmott, Filmcritic.com
There's this gay garbageman who roams the city at night in a black rubber catsuit and searches out dangerous anonymous sexual encounters. Would you care to invest?
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, TheMovieChicks.com
The film may be provocative, but it's also maddening... In the end, the audience is left with a great big WHY?
Greg Muskewitz, eFilmCritic.com
Like the central figure, the structurelessness of plot and direction, lead directly into obscurity.
David Elliott, San Diego Union-Tribune
It extends the writings of Jean Genet and John Rechy, the films of Fassbinder, perhaps even the nocturnal works of Goya.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
This odd, distant Portuguese import more or less borrows from Bad Lieutenant and Les Vampires, and comes up with a kind of art-house gay porn film.
Chuck Wilson, L.A. Weekly
First-time director João Pedro Rodrigues' unwillingness to define his hero's background or motivations becomes more and more frustrating as the film goes on.
David Noh, Film Journal International
Although purportedly a study in modern alienation, it's really little more than a particularly slanted, gay s/m fantasy, enervating and deadeningly drawn-out.
Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide's Movie Guide
While the transgressive trappings (especially the frank sex scenes) ensure that the film is never dull, Rodrigues's beast-within metaphor is ultimately rather silly and overwrought, making the ambiguous ending seem goofy rather than provocative.
Brandon Judell, PopcornQ
The most audacious, outrageous, sexually explicit, psychologically probing, pure libido film of the year has arrived from Portugal.

Read all 15 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

_kelly .

My Logline: A Dirty Little Slut with a Forbidden Big Crush. A great art house portrait of loneliness, squalor, and sexual desire. Great anonymous sex scenes and some truly great erotic cinematography very partial to the callipygian lead. (I'd recommend a jerk before you watch… More
My Logline: A Dirty Little Slut with a Forbidden Big Crush. A great art house portrait of loneliness, squalor, and sexual desire. Great anonymous sex scenes and some truly great erotic cinematography very partial to the callipygian lead. (I'd recommend a jerk before you watch this if you're ten percent the horndog that this main character is). There is very little dialogue but swimming pools of unspoken communication, tense as a hard-on and spread like petroleum jelly. The grungy filth is there though; this character is a garbage worker living in the streets, garbage warehouse, and rented rooms who steals from garbage bins for masturbatory articles of clothing and sneaks about his obsession's property. Don't read past the spoiler if you want to watch this. The problem with this film is the ambiguity of the pivotal point which causes the ending of the final act. It's not the (chronologically) non-linear editing of the scenes that bothers me, but the story; BIG SPOILER - I dislike the options of scenarios that are offered regarding the outcome of the capture and rape. Problem: in one scenario (the first scene actually) the guy is lovin Sergio pounding him in the kinky gear (when I first saw it, I didn't know it was non-consensual; I thought it was just some fetish stuff as both parties looked to be having intense pleasure.). In the other, Sergio just drags the guy out to street and leaves him somewhere, the only bit of action being Sergio dry humping him (without the zipper on the latex suit open) whilst securing his bonds. I want to know if Sergio degrades into the animalistic swine he is at the conclusion of the film because he has totally fulfilled his fantasy or he's completely pitifully failed at his attempt. Maybe the point is that both would lead to the ending's savage lack of humanity and loss of identity; that's pretty common of art house, but had I wrote it, I would have definitively picked one and explored THAT subsequent theory instead. Me myself, would be better that he got the more glorified version and fell into such utter despair that he no longer needs to function as a human so reverts to a primordial state, no longer able to exist in the human context, as opposed to failing at such a thing, stooping so low and doing something so primal, causes a human to lose their humanity (this answer is just flatter and more common sense as opposed to revealing like my choice).<br/>ADDED NOTE NON-SPOILER<br/>movie is loaded with sexually explicit scenes, plenty of nudity - lots of cok and arse, with some hot sucking and unusual masturbation. "So Fucked Up" highlight: digging through trash for masturbatory material and then using it in combo with some auto-erotic asphyxiation
Sylvester K

What the F is this film all about, I understand it's an art house film, but to me it seems like a soft core porn. (Due to the excessive nudity and sex scenes minus dialogue) Sex is well explored in the film, but it could have been done better.

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O Fantasma (2000)

Critic Reviews

Featured Audience Ratings

_kelly .

Sylvester K

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