“Morpheus and Charon” screens tomorrow, Saturday, October 3, in the 7 p.m. block “To Be Young…And Young Again” alongside Shutter Speed
The Brazilian short celebrates older queer sexuality with imagination and abandon, although its emphasis on explicit sexual imagery may not connect with every viewer.
Hollywood, CA (The Hollywood Times) 10/02/26 – There is certainly nothing shy about Morpheus and Charon.
Directed by Luiz Ulian and Jocimar Dias Jr., the 14-minute Brazilian short centers on Zito, an elderly queer man living with dementia, and his two lovers, Morpheus and Charon. As Zito’s illness progresses, reality, memory, fantasy and desire begin blending together, with his final chapter imagined through an extravagant, almost dreamlike Brazilian samba musical.
It is an intriguing and potentially very moving idea. A story about aging queer men, dementia, caregiving, sexuality and the inevitability of death is something we do not see very often on screen.
The filmmakers also refuse to portray older queer people as sexless simply because they have reached a certain age. There is something admirable in that decision. Older bodies and older sexuality remain largely invisible in movies, and Morpheus and Charon go emphatically in the opposite direction.
Perhaps a little too emphatically for this reviewer.
Much of the film is centered around male sexuality, including very frank sexual situations and group encounters. While those scenes clearly serve the filmmakers’ larger celebration of desire and sexual freedom, I found myself wishing some of that screen time had been given instead to the emotional relationship among these three men.
For me, the sex sometimes overwhelms what is actually the more interesting story: three aging people confronting love, memory, illness and ultimately saying goodbye.
And while queer cinema should certainly encompass far more than one type of audience or experience, this is also an intensely male-centered film. As a woman watching it, I did not feel particularly connected to its erotic world. Women looking for a female-centered LGBTQ+ story should know going in that this is very much a film about older gay men, their bodies and their sexuality.
That does not make its perspective any less legitimate. In fact, the filmmakers deserve credit for putting images on screen that mainstream cinema generally avoids altogether. But being provocative does not automatically make every provocative moment emotionally effective.
Where Morpheus and Charon become more compelling is when sexuality gives way to vulnerability. Beneath all the exuberance is the sadness of watching someone begin to disappear through dementia while the people who love him remain beside him. The contrast between approaching death and an imagination exploding with music, color, sex and life gives the short its most distinctive quality.
The film has already found considerable recognition on the festival circuit. It had its world premiere at Frameline50, where it received the Outstanding Narrative Short Award, followed by honors at the Festival de Cinema de Vitória and São Paulo International Short Film Festival.
Those accolades make sense. This is ambitious filmmaking packed into only 14 minutes, and Ulian and Dias Jr. clearly have a strong visual point of view.
Morpheus and Charon was not entirely my kind of film, particularly because I felt the emphasis on explicit sexuality sometimes distracted from its emotional center. But I can also appreciate what it is doing: insisting that queer people do not stop desiring, loving, fantasizing or living simply because they grow old.
And underneath all the sex, spectacle and samba, that may be the film’s most meaningful message.
By Valerie Milano
