Insolação tells stories of unrequited love. “Love and loss. Loss, mostly,” says one character. In an empty city, scorched by the sun, young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover through buildings and over endless flatland in search of the ever-elusive love, while the film’s nostalgic narrator, Andrei, bears witness to their tales.
Based loosely on a series of stories by Anton Chekov, the various plots of the film weave together and unravel in the improbable city of Brasilia—a distorted mirror image of Soviet utopia—located in the heart of the country.
