Kill me please” was born from the desire to make a film for the young audiences, yet not underestimating their world view, much less their dreams and desires. On one side, the perception that the body is perishable, made of flesh and bone; that to be alive we have to feel everything in our skin; on the other side, a new kind of body – immaterial, virtual – in a world where being offline is the very opposite of being alive.
The chosen setting is Barra da Tijuca, west Rio de Janeiro. An area of recent occupation, without history, standardized; with its high-speed lanes and ever present building sites, this is no place for what’s old and traditional. Thus, this is the perfect space to follow our two main characters, Bia and João, and figure how they cope with Love and Death, Eros and Thanatos. João will be facing the virtual death, a reflection of a society that is mediated by tools of affective vigilance. He will be chasing not a girl, but a ghost. Bia, on the other hand, will be transformed at the moment when she finds a girl on the brink of death. On her last breath - the lacerated and perishable body –, a kiss on the mouth, the taste of blood. This will awaken something new in Bia: a strange affection, something she’s never felt before. She’ll realize that every step she takes gets her closer to her own death. And there's something seductive about this path. She wants to flirt with Death. Bia wants to die without stop living; she wants to feel everything intensely.
Thus, this narrative that mixes terror and supernatural elements will have as reference the works by David Lynch, Tsai Ming-Liang and Claire Denis. From Lynch, specially “Blue Velvet”, as well as the pilot for “Twin Peaks”. In those works, I was inspired by the effervescent desire face to a decadent society model. In characters such as Donna Hayward, who feel everything to the point of passing out. In the work by Tsai, it charms me its fabulous and iconic touch mixed to a full non-adhesion to values or morals. From Denis, I’m particular attracted to “Beau Travail” and “Trouble Every Day”, films about flesh, its limits and its most irrational impulses.
And what’s more important: in spite of the two main characters follow apparently opposite paths – Bia comes across real death, of the flesh and body, while João will have to cope with a new type of death, the virtual one – both of them are byproducts of their time. And without fearing to being pathetic, they reflect in their own way what it is to be young in 2013.