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Drug Lords (2018)
It could have been better but it can be entertaining
The characters portrayed probably had a life full of interesting details, but that seems to be wasted and this series rarely gets you enthusiastic. It's not that those guys should be glamorized or that the series should take a sensationalist approach, but some greater detail would do well. Episodes are long but lack information density. Those simulation scenes could have been more well performed, especially with better actors. Or they could just have not been made at all, or even be replaced by cartoon. It's interesting - even indispensable - to interview those who were directly involved in the events portrayed (the cops and the gangsters), but it would be very nice to also hear some of the people who were indirectly affected by their actions and also some experts. This series can be entertaining, but it leaves you with the feeling that something much better could have been done with its subject matter.
The Garden of Afflictions (2017)
Touching
On social networks, Olavo de Carvalho is a symbol, not a human being - not even a philosopher, for the ones who use the Olavo symbol don't seem to know his ideas. The longtime idiots, who have recently decided to become political, either idolise or mock the Olavo symbol, without paying much attention to what he actually says.
As for me, in the few times that I've read something by Olavo on social networks, I couldn't understand why he'd become all that symbol. For me, he just seems like someone endowed with lots of curiosity and who's got some interesting and honest ideas - simply put, a philosopher, as he himself likes to be called.
Lately I've been reading a lot about Christianity, not from an exclusively religious point of view, but from a rational perspective, trying to understand the historical and sociological aspects that have lead to the expansion of the faith. Maybe that's one of the reasons I decided to watch this film, for I had already heard that Olavo deals with Christianity through a philosophical approach.
I've enjoyed the film. I don't remember all the things that Olavo said in it, but some of them had a strong impression on me. For example, the conclusion that most of our ideas don't have any importance even for ourselves, for we usually are not willing to die for them. So, when we try to propagate or impose our ideas, most of the time we're just in need of some attention or of alleviating some feeling of loneliness.
I also like the concept of the pedigree of opinions. We always have lots of opinions and, when we're confronted about them, we try to justify them, but most of the time we're not able to identify the origin of our opinions, their genealogical roots. All the time we're bombarded with ideas that are propagated by several social actors and we assimilate them without even noticing it. So, trying to identify the pedigree of our opinions is a really interesting exercise.
Another thing that touched me was the concept that everything that enters the sphere of being never gets out of it. If my soul exists now, it's going to exist forever. I don't know wether that's an idea of his or wether he borrowed it from someone else - it doesn't matter, as he himself says, the important thing is that the idea be true. Anyway, that argument for the immortality of the soul was something that touched me inside, especially because lately I've been through something like an existential crisis.
Finally, I was struck by his perception that, even though we have lots of civil rights and individual liberties nowadays, the state has never had so many technological tools through which it can very easily watch and control everybody's lives. Maybe the ever growing technologies will eventually become a serious threat to our freedom and anonymity.
Apart from all the things he says, the film is really enjoyable. The landscapes are fine to see, the soundtrack is cool. It's a light and enjoyable documentary.
Comeback: Um Matador Nunca se Aposenta (2016)
21st century Brazilian Western that combines the best elements of the genre with the peculiarities of the place and time the story is set
Through the dirt roads of the suburbs of some isolated town in the Brazilian state of Goiás, Amador drives an old station wagon carrying around slot machines and trying to convince bar owners to get into that business. At his seventies, always wearing a hat and showing a face that is serious and serene at the same time, he's really not into that kind of business, and he's been missing those days when he used to put into practice his true talent: killing for money.
It turns out that in recent times the "neighborhood boss" has forbidden that kind of indiscriminate violence, for a quite pragmatic reason. Nowadays it is possible to make money outside the law without causing so much terror and without calling so much attention from the media and the authorities. The slot machines' profitable business is an outstanding example. The problem is that, in this black market, many work and few get the profits, and Amador, who's among the ones who only work, is getting tired of that situation. He can't stand having become just one of the subordinates of "the Uncle" - the crime boss in town, a longtime acquaintance of Amador's, who also came from the underworld and today poses as a respected businessman.
Amador's resentment and dissatisfaction silently build up until they finally overflow to a "comeback". This time, he wants more than just financial rewards for his murders. At the end of his life, he mainly wishes to rebuild his reputation as a feared and respected gunman, who doesn't need to bow to that fake businessman who lives in his castle and whose courage has never been proved in combat.
Amador proudly keeps an album of newspapers clippings, with tens of headlines reporting the violent crimes he committed in the past. That album works as a kind of curriculum vitae, in the most professional sense of that word. It's a true showcase that he offers to potential clients who might doubt his efficiency as a hit-man.
Amador is not afraid to pride himself in all of his past slaughters and he even brags about being some kind of a celebrity in town. It feels like we're at a parallel universe of crooked morals where the bloodthirsty outlaws are the real heroes.
Despite the cruelty of their past actions, Amador and his old partners don't behave as savage men capable of doing some atrocity at any moment for no reason. Rather, they act like polite and civilized men, although not with that kind of sophisticated elegance of some Italian mafiosi that are typical of films like The Godfather or Goodfellas (something that probably never existed in real life). Instead, Amador has the manners of a respectable but humble family man.
Nelson Xavier does a brilliant job at playing Amador. He's at scene through nearly all of the 90 minutes of the film, but there isn't one single frame where he shows a hint of a smile. He keeps a constant attitude of heavy serenity, and his manners vary subtly depending on whom he's interacting with.
When he's dealing with his apprentice, his posture is that of solemn haughtiness combined with a certain dose of understanding condescension. When he's at the hospital visiting his old friend and partner Davi, we sense in him a light warmth that expresses the surprising solidarity that a murderer can have towards someone who's at the brink of death. When he's got to talk to the Uncle, his posture changes considerably: he loses a good part of his haughty nature and he assumes an air that connotes some kind of reluctant submission, something like a fake reverence that purposely wants to look fake. Xavier's versatility, the great expressive strength of his acting, is one of the essential elements that make this a great film.
The plot is not very dense, it doesn't use that old technique of creating and resolving narrative tensions. It actually seems more like a collage of loosely connected situations that have each its own special aesthetic interest. This is a film that aims to portray a general context, presenting itself almost like a documentary that's full of gaps that must be filled by the spectator's imagination. What would be a narrative ends up being more well defined as an observation of those men's lives as they naturally unfold, with their occasional beauties and also with their dull banalities.
The expressive cinematography reveals some landscapes that are seldom explored by Brazilian cinema, which usually emphasizes the extremes (portraying the shanty towns and the rich neighborhoods). Comeback gives us the opportunity to enjoy the view of some streets that could be those of any middle-class suburban neighborhood of any big Brazilian town. These unexceptional urban landscapes are shown through a perspective that makes them look transcendent, turning them into real works of art, just like a painting whose result is superior to the reality it portrays. The sequences in which the camera follows at high speed Amador's station wagon through the ups and downs of those dirt roads is a true delight for anyone who's got some aesthetic sensitivity.
The constant use of dark interiors with yellowish lights focused on the characters evokes that kind of lighting that is usually employed in theaters, creating an effect that's cozy and melancholic at the same time, giving the film its general mood. The excellent soundtrack also contributes to that mood, being made up of songs that are mostly heavy and slow, with elements of Brazilian and Latin American rural music.
As a 21st century Brazilian western, capable of combining the best elements of the genre with the peculiarities of the place and time where the story is set, Comeback is undoubtedly one of the best Brazilian features of this year.
La Vingança (2016)
Lightly dramatic comedy with lots of action and a smart humor
When Caco finally gives in and decides to ask his girlfriend Júlia to marry him, he finds her having sex with her boss in the kitchen of the restaurant she works at. Facundo Flores, her boss, is a famous Argentinian chef who owns a prizewinning international restaurant chain and is the host of a highly popular cooking TV show. In view of this catastrophe, Caco is taken by force by his great friend Vadão to a deranged car trip from São Paulo to Buenos Aires, looking for vengeance: having sex with as many Argentinian women as possible, in order to save the honor of all those Brazilian men who have once been cheated on with an Argentinian guy.
However, the nearest Vadão gets to his aim is taking to bed a Paraguayan woman whom he later labels as a "fake Argentinian". Anyway, they didn't have sex because he couldn't get his thing up: he's a viagra addict and the Argentinian police had confiscated his blue pills at a traffic stop.
Meanwhile, all along the trip Caco spends his time in a depressed mood, checking his ex-girlfriend's profile on facebook each five minutes, until he gets blocked by her. Unlike Vadão, he is actually not looking for vengeance, nor is he mad at Júlia: in his view, he is the only one to blame, for he wasn't able to satisfy his girlfriend. So when he finds out through facebook that Júlia moved to Buenos Aires to live with her Argentinian lover, he accepts the idea of going with his friend until the end of the trip, but without telling him his true intention: talking to Júlia in an effort to understand why she left him for Facundo and maybe trying to regain her love.
Felipe Rocha is quite convincing as he plays Caco, a mature man with a stable personality who's just been hit by life and is still trying to cope. Daniel Furlan is also remarkable as Vadão, a 30-year-old playboy who suffers from late adolescence. Aylin Prandi and Ana Pauls also do remarkable contributions.
The rivalry between Brazil and Argentina, which has most of its roots on football, is explored in a fun way, although making unrestrained use of some worn-out clichés like the old dispute about who is the best football player in history (whether Maradona or Pelé). Bilingual dialogues between Brazilians and Argentinians are the feedstock for some good laughs, with the creative use of some embarrassing linguistic situations that come up as they try to communicate with each other. Cultural differences and resemblances between both countries are also used in an intelligent and fun way.
The general mood is that of a lightly dramatic comedy with lots of action and a smart humor that's capable of entertaining different kinds of audiences.
Desculpe o Transtorno (2016)
Mildly entertaining romantic comedy
"Desculpe o transtorno" is a romantic comedy centered on a young rich man who's just begun to suffer from a double personality. His identity is split between Eduardo, a young businessman from São Paulo who works for his father's company, which is his main personality; and Duca, a bohemian alter ego from Rio de Janeiro who lives his life in the most carefree way.
This is a film that's probably meant for Brazilian audiences, for there are some references that would hardly be caught by foreign spectators. The most important of them is the friendly rivalry between the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Rio is the second largest city in Brazil and it was the national capital for about two centuries (until 1960) and it still remains some kind of a cultural capital of Brazil. It's a sunny city by the sea, with lots of beaches and natural landscapes, as well as several historic buildings. Its inhabitants, who are called "Cariocas", have the reputation of being joyous, cool and somewhat rascal. São Paulo, on the other hand, is the largest city in Brazil (and in the Southern hemisphere), and it's regarded to be the economic and financial capital of the country. It's a concrete jungle far from the sea, full of modern skyscrapers and large avenues where the eternal traffic jams are part of the landscape. The "Paulistanos", as its residents are known, carry the stereotype of being conservative, workaholic, and uncool.
Eduardo, the Paulistano guy, wakes up everyday at six o'clock in the morning in his large apartment with a modern and monochromatic furniture. He always wears the same black sports outfit, runs for some minutes through the same gray streets of São Paulo, goes back home, wears his suit and tie and then goes to his workplace: his father's company. This sequence repeats itself several times during the film, making the viewer quite tired, which might be on purpose: this way we can feel in our bones the boredom of Eduardo's monotonous life. His friends are his coworkers, i.e., his father's employees, which leads us to doubt the sincerity of those friendships, especially if we take into account Eduardo's grumpy and uncool nature. He's been in an artificial relationship with his girlfriend for eight years now. Viviana treats her submissive boyfriend as if he were a child deprived of any decision-making ability. At a restaurant, she compels Eduardo to make a marriage proposal, and then she records the scene with her phone for publishing it later in some social media. Meanwhile, Eduardo lets himself be conducted by his girlfriend as someone who doesn't even think about the possibility of frustrating other peoples' expectations.
When Eduardo's mother dies, he must go to her burial in Rio de Janeiro, and it seems like he hasn't been there since the day when he was taken to São Paulo by his father right after his parents' divorce, when he was 8 years old. He revisits his hometown of Rio de Janeiro and that's when his Carioca alter ego begins to manifest itself. Duca is a relaxed and humorous guy, the opposite of his main personality. In Rio, Duca occasionally meets Bárbara, a Carioca girl who gave up her acting career and now makes some money wearing a pink rabbit costume at the airport. She talks confidently about Freudian concepts like ego, super ego and ID, but she later reveals that she had read about them on Wikipedia. Her interest in psychology is probably due to her being affected by a personality disorder that she describes this way: she really cares about making other people's shitty lives better, but she does nothing to make her own shitty life better. Nevertheless, she takes part in a group called Personality Disorders Anonymous, and she convinces Duca to go there with her so he can treat his double personality.
The plot then revolves around the choice he must make between the honourable life of Eduardo, who's about to marry his annoying and futile fiancée, and the adventurous life of Duca in the company of his cute and smart Carioca girl. It's obviously not a particularly hard decision.
This film can't cause much laughter, but it tries to lead the viewer to make some emotional personal reflection - unsuccessfully, I'd say. The script adheres to the new wave of politically correct humour (and the term is not used here in the usual pejorative sense) whose most outstanding exponent in Brazil nowadays is the hugely successful YouTube channel Porta dos Fundos, from which most of the cast was drawn. All the jokes avoid thoroughly any elements that might be regarded as racist, homophobic or chauvinist. There's this scene of cheating being caught in which the girlfriend calls the mistress a slut, and then the mistress replies that "no woman should be called a slut", in a clear feminist reference. Some dialogues try hard to sound deep and insightful, but this effect is probably only reached when the spectator is a teenager. Otherwise, they sound just corny. There are some really beautiful scenes of classical Rio de Janeiro natural and urban landscapes that are always a pleasure to appreciate.
If you're looking for a mildly entertaining Brazilian popcorn romantic comedy, that's your film.
Fresa y chocolate (1993)
A neutral and warm portrait of Cuban society in the 90's
When we hear about Cuba, what usually comes to mind is its communist regime. It's one of the traits that distinguish the island from the other Caribbean and Latin American countries in general. Therefore, when talking about a Cuban film, it's quite tempting to make some political remarks. That is unavoidable with "Fresa y Chocolate", a 1993 film that's loaded with political content, but without a clear sense of ideological propaganda against or in favour of the system.
The story begins when a university student member of the Communist Party meets a gay artist who doesn't like the regime. Davi, the communist boy, with the support of a roommate who's also a party member, decides to investigate the life of Diego, the political dissident, with the aim of denouncing him to the authorities. However, the relationship between the informal investigator and the suspect assumes unexpected features, giving place to a sincere friendship that leads the naive Davi to understand and to learn how to deal with the subversive differences represented by Diego.
Some subtle criticisms are made about the regime, whose authoritarian nature is exemplified by the episode in which Diego tries to obtain a permit for an art exhibition. The harmless sculptures made by his friend Germán are banned, and Diego feels the reason for that is simple: works of art that are free of ideological propaganda in favour of the regime have no place in the island of Fidel Castro.
At home, Diego often has to turn on the radio at a volume high enough so the neighbours won't be able to hear some of his conversations that might sound like defying the official ideology. It might be seen as a criticism against the lack of freedom of thought that's typical of authoritarian regimes, but it might also be interpreted as a proof of the high popular support for that same regime: even your neighbors collaborate with the authorities in the repression of political dissent.
Nevertheless, there's also place for apologetic comments about the regime, as when Davi emphasizes the fact that he can go to university despite being the son of peasant parents.
Leaving aside the political element, the human relationship between Diego and Davi unfolds in a captivating and convincing way. Davi is the typical straight guy who fears having his masculinity shaken by the contact with gay men. But little by little he lets his defences fall down until he's open enough for creating a trustful and intimate relationship with his new friend.
Meanwhile, Diego is an effeminate man who has an intense love for art in general and shows an atypical erudition. At first, he shows a strong sexual interest in Davi, but he soon realizes that the young communist man is an irreversible straight guy and then he stops his flirtatious behaviour and chooses to build a disinterested friendship instead.
Some moments make it clear that homosexuality is frowned upon by the official ideology. Homophobic remarks are often made by Davi's communist roommate. He's even "accused" of having an affair with Diego. Davi himself asks Diego why his family didn't take him to the doctor as a child so he could be cured from that "endocrinal disease". Diego laughs and says that being gay is something that has happened since the dawn of the world, and that it doesn't prevent him from being a decent and patriotic person. But Davi insists that homosexuality prevents him from being a revolutionary.
"Fresa y Chocolate" is at the same time enjoyable and thought- provoking, and gives us an opportunity to observe a portrait of the Cuban society from a surprisingly impartial perspective.
Sinfonia da Necrópole (2014)
Not a waste of time
Musical comedy-drama about an apprentice gravedigger who falls in love with a funerary expert who's just been admitted to the cemetery he works at.
The funerary expert is an intelligent, independent woman, who talks in an energetic way and goes around riding a Harley-Davidson-style motorcycle. Despite being an enjoyable kind of person, she shows no sensitivity at all. The apprentice gravedigger is a young man from the countryside, with little education, displaying unrealistic amounts of naivety and sensitivity, and having no trace of standard masculinity at all. An inversion of gender stereotypes, which could be well more captivating, were it not for the narrowness of both characters. They're superficial, they have no life history, and they lack the minimal personality complexity that could make them look human. It seems like they're children's stories characters.
It must be admitted that several times is the film pleasing to the eyes and ears. The musical scenes - which aren't many - are well produced and the soundtrack is good. This film is able to entertain. It can keep your attention and it doesn't demand any intellectual effort. But it can't cause any emotions or laughs either. After one hour, you'll be probably checking your watch to see if it's still going to take too long for it to be over. It's that kind of film that you immediately forget as soon as you leave the room.
7/10