How to Draw a Perfect Circle

How to Draw a Perfect Circle (Portuguese: "Como Desenhar um Círculo Perfeito") is a 2009 Portuguese drama film directed by Marco Martins and starring Rafael Morais, Daniel Duval, Joana de Verona, Beatriz Batarda, and Albano Jeronimo. Its plot revolves around a young man Guilherme and his sister Sofia, who grow up sharing experiences and slowly discovering their sexuality. The thing that Sofia doesn't know is how far Guilherme will go to keep her inside his own perverse, dark and perfect circle
Synopsis.
Perhaps one day, psychologists will explain why incest among the poor is seen as shocking and sordid, while such behavior among the rich is decadent and transgressive. Martins and co-scripter Goncalo M. Tavares offer no insight into this enigma.
Guilherme (Rafael Morais) and his sister, Sofia (Joana de Verona) two live in their grandmother’s mansion, occasionally looked in on by their unconventional mom (Beatriz Batarda). Their dad, Paul (Daniel Duval), returns to Portugal from Paris, but he’s the kind of Frenchie intellectual devoid of parenting skills.
Sofia promised Guilherme that when she was ready, he would have the dubious privilege of taking her virginity, and the randy young man is getting impatient, unable to satisfy himself any longer with masturbating by her side. When he spies his sis apparently having sex with another guy, he feels deeply betrayed, his emotional maelstrom further exacerbated by news of their grandmother’s death.
As Mom makes moves to sell the ancestral manse — another betrayal — Guilherme moves in with Paul. That doesn’t work out very well, either, and once again he’s reduced to self-gratification, this time while watching his father having sex with a prostitute. Just before this scene, while father and son play Tic-Tac-Toe, Paul remarks that Guilherme can draw a perfect circle but always loses the game. The line is a long time coming, and by then, any meaningful emotional resonance has been lost.
There’s an oddly backward-looking quality to the entire film, as Martins emulates Godard and Co. (the siblings watch “Band of Outsiders”), but in a way that feels attenuated and false; even the decor screams French cinephilia. Paul is almost a parody of a French intellectual, while his son’s naive reticence, as well as unnatural predilections, are anything but charming. So the characters look yearningly, smoke a lot of cigarettes, flick through Virginia Woolf and walk in the rain — it’s like “The Dreamers” without the magnetic personalities.
Some marvelously unexpected images in the first third, like an overhead shot of Guilherme between beach and ocean’s edge, remind us that there is genuine talent here. Scenes often start with slow pans from above or below, and crepuscular lighting is maintained for a maximum amount of dark spaces. Art direction inside the mansion would appeal to an early 21st-century version of Miss Havisham’s house, with tonalities kept to a dun-colored dreariness. Songs by Jacques Brel, Leo Ferre, and others further the French feel.
Reception.
Bernardo Sassetti won the Award of Best Music at the 5th Festival de Cinema de Países de Língua Portuguesa.