Ó pai ó is a characteristic expression of the city of Salvador, Bahia, which can be translated as "look at this". And what you look at the screen is a parade of urban stereotypes on the last day of the carnival.
However, what was to be expected is surprising and, through music and the ubiquitous sensuality, the characters gain their own definitions, they dignify themselves, and here and there they take flights always certain, albeit short.
Residents of a tenement in Largo do Pelourinho, the characters have a common characteristic: when they act in the horizontal plane, they are tourist representations: the reveler, the baiana, the stallion, the transsexual, the cowrie shells clairvoyant, the believer, the Bonfim's Church.
On the vertical plane, they are citizens who survive in an unequal society: the unsuccessful artist, the receptionist who wants to go to Europe, the European "wife" returned, the clumsy swindler, the vigilante policeman working "overtime" for the traders.
Although there are no protagonists, the painter Roque, who is also a singer, composer, and dancer, participates in the best moments of the movie, the first one at the beginning, when a carnival block formed by almost every one of the cast decides to parade through the streets of an empty Pelourinho. Expelled from the bar of the funny Neusão, Roque sings the beautiful "Come my love" in a truly epic moment.
The second striking scene, also involving Roque, is a discussion of him with the huckster Boca (which seems to encompass all the vices of the movie). Neurotic, Boca decides to offend the painter by calling him "negro", but Roque makes a passionate speech in defense of blackness.
The only person who does not align herself with sensuous-carnival normality is Dona Joana, an evangelical woman who owns the tenement and, for revenge (divine?) against "sinners, witchers and potheads", closes the water of the building, leaving the locals driving mad.
In the end, joy, sadness, tragedy and romance blend into the streets flooded by the participants of the Araketu block. While the other block, Olodum, protests.
However, what was to be expected is surprising and, through music and the ubiquitous sensuality, the characters gain their own definitions, they dignify themselves, and here and there they take flights always certain, albeit short.
Residents of a tenement in Largo do Pelourinho, the characters have a common characteristic: when they act in the horizontal plane, they are tourist representations: the reveler, the baiana, the stallion, the transsexual, the cowrie shells clairvoyant, the believer, the Bonfim's Church.
On the vertical plane, they are citizens who survive in an unequal society: the unsuccessful artist, the receptionist who wants to go to Europe, the European "wife" returned, the clumsy swindler, the vigilante policeman working "overtime" for the traders.
Although there are no protagonists, the painter Roque, who is also a singer, composer, and dancer, participates in the best moments of the movie, the first one at the beginning, when a carnival block formed by almost every one of the cast decides to parade through the streets of an empty Pelourinho. Expelled from the bar of the funny Neusão, Roque sings the beautiful "Come my love" in a truly epic moment.
The second striking scene, also involving Roque, is a discussion of him with the huckster Boca (which seems to encompass all the vices of the movie). Neurotic, Boca decides to offend the painter by calling him "negro", but Roque makes a passionate speech in defense of blackness.
The only person who does not align herself with sensuous-carnival normality is Dona Joana, an evangelical woman who owns the tenement and, for revenge (divine?) against "sinners, witchers and potheads", closes the water of the building, leaving the locals driving mad.
In the end, joy, sadness, tragedy and romance blend into the streets flooded by the participants of the Araketu block. While the other block, Olodum, protests.