A man is employed by the railroad to prevent a payroll robbery.
I watched it last Saturday. It's not very good, and I didn't find the prospect of writing this review too compelling, so I kept postponing it. It's a very overplotted movie, and overcrowded with characters. It is sort of entertaining in a way, but everything seems quite irrelevant and improbable and very pulp-fiction-ish.
Saw it in pan-and-scan.
Rating: 37
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Quem Sabe... Sabe! (1956)
Alternatively punctuated title: Quem Sabe, Sabe!
Musical comedy. A card reader operates in partnership with her brother, who gets information on her clients through their female servants.
Rather weak, but with a marginal value of cultural document. This is not one of the morally sounder films I have seen, what with its protagonists being a couple of crooks, and much of the cast of characters getting involved in shady deeds of one sort or another. As usual with immoral films, it purports to have a moral message, which in this case is that discrimination against chorus girls is bad. It seems to be a case of defending one's own backyard, since there is really no difference between the profession of the young actresses and that of the characters they play.
Rating: 31
Musical comedy. A card reader operates in partnership with her brother, who gets information on her clients through their female servants.
Rather weak, but with a marginal value of cultural document. This is not one of the morally sounder films I have seen, what with its protagonists being a couple of crooks, and much of the cast of characters getting involved in shady deeds of one sort or another. As usual with immoral films, it purports to have a moral message, which in this case is that discrimination against chorus girls is bad. It seems to be a case of defending one's own backyard, since there is really no difference between the profession of the young actresses and that of the characters they play.
Rating: 31
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Bar Esperança (1983)
Second viewing; first viewed between the date of its Brazilian release and December, 1986.
U.S. title (according to IMDB): Bar Esperanza
It centers on a writer's decision of quitting his TV job and on his wife's decision of leaving him because of that. Other characters are the patrons of a bar where the couple regularly goes.
While it depicts Brazilian TV as a place where artists are slowly killed, or transformed into zombies, much like its mass of spectators, it follows the strictly TV-like template of sitcoms, which is another kind of artistic dead end. A shallow movie, with one or two interesting sequences (e.g., when the barfly pesters the protagonist into a fake duel), and fine camerawork.
Rating: 49 (down from 52)
U.S. title (according to IMDB): Bar Esperanza
It centers on a writer's decision of quitting his TV job and on his wife's decision of leaving him because of that. Other characters are the patrons of a bar where the couple regularly goes.
While it depicts Brazilian TV as a place where artists are slowly killed, or transformed into zombies, much like its mass of spectators, it follows the strictly TV-like template of sitcoms, which is another kind of artistic dead end. A shallow movie, with one or two interesting sequences (e.g., when the barfly pesters the protagonist into a fake duel), and fine camerawork.
Rating: 49 (down from 52)
Saturday, January 16, 2016
The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962)
World War II. Two Americans are assigned an espionage mission in Nazi-occupied Rome. They stay with an Italian family and must relay information to the Allies.
It is clear from the latest reviews here that love in film is an excellent dramatic vehicle to analyze a vast array of human endeavors and the psychological traits they entail. The love triangle is one of the structures that have been used to show how human conflict evolves and is resolved. There is no explicit love triangle here, or rather, one of the vertices has only a virtual existence, so to speak. One character will marry a woman who has been impregnated by an enemy soldier; his sergeant falls in love with her sister, who gives her sexual favors to German officers. This type of cuckoldry plays like an individual metonimy for the collective War phenomenon: every level of the fight consists of someone giving his life for the profit of someone else, who may be, according to the scope of analysis, a top ranking officer, the government, the capitalist establishment, etc. The messaging aspect of the plot adds another angle of correspondence: just as cuckoldry inserts noise into the communications system in which human semen is supposed to relay the biological message that propagates one's genetic characteristics, war communications are constantly subject to all kinds of interferences which may revert the outcome of the conflict. The film itself is part of a deeper level of miscommunication whose purpose is to conceal behind patriotic notions the identity of those who profit from all the killing and maiming -- one's real enemies, in short.
Rating: 39
It is clear from the latest reviews here that love in film is an excellent dramatic vehicle to analyze a vast array of human endeavors and the psychological traits they entail. The love triangle is one of the structures that have been used to show how human conflict evolves and is resolved. There is no explicit love triangle here, or rather, one of the vertices has only a virtual existence, so to speak. One character will marry a woman who has been impregnated by an enemy soldier; his sergeant falls in love with her sister, who gives her sexual favors to German officers. This type of cuckoldry plays like an individual metonimy for the collective War phenomenon: every level of the fight consists of someone giving his life for the profit of someone else, who may be, according to the scope of analysis, a top ranking officer, the government, the capitalist establishment, etc. The messaging aspect of the plot adds another angle of correspondence: just as cuckoldry inserts noise into the communications system in which human semen is supposed to relay the biological message that propagates one's genetic characteristics, war communications are constantly subject to all kinds of interferences which may revert the outcome of the conflict. The film itself is part of a deeper level of miscommunication whose purpose is to conceal behind patriotic notions the identity of those who profit from all the killing and maiming -- one's real enemies, in short.
Rating: 39
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Le combat dans l'île (1962)
English festival title: Fire and Ice
Proper English translation of the title: The Fight in the Island
A woman has a relationship with a rightwing militant, who is assigned to perform an assassination. After the act, the couple take refuge with a childhood friend who is a leftwing militant who prints political material and despises violent action.
An earlier exploration on the Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands theme, with a diferent take that eschews the economic angle. The film seems to be biased toward the Left, which seems to be comprised of peace-loving and family-oriented individuals, whereas the Right is violent and egotistical in personal relationships. That is obviously belied by a long view on History, although it may make sense in connection with that particular moment in France. Viewed as a political allegory, the implication seems to be that the Left is reluctantly, yet inevitably, drawn into Violence by the actions of Reactionaries.
Rating: 31
Proper English translation of the title: The Fight in the Island
A woman has a relationship with a rightwing militant, who is assigned to perform an assassination. After the act, the couple take refuge with a childhood friend who is a leftwing militant who prints political material and despises violent action.
An earlier exploration on the Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands theme, with a diferent take that eschews the economic angle. The film seems to be biased toward the Left, which seems to be comprised of peace-loving and family-oriented individuals, whereas the Right is violent and egotistical in personal relationships. That is obviously belied by a long view on History, although it may make sense in connection with that particular moment in France. Viewed as a political allegory, the implication seems to be that the Left is reluctantly, yet inevitably, drawn into Violence by the actions of Reactionaries.
Rating: 31
Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (1976)
Second viewing; first viewed on some indeterminate date before January 1987.
English title: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.
Based on the novel by Jorge Amado (1st ed., 1966), which has some plot elements borrowed from or simply coincidental with the 1941 play Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward.
A young widow remarries but her new, methodic, husband can't ease her lust the way her late one, a gambler and a womanizer, did.
An allegory of Brazil, a land which, as the theme-song succinctly puts it, "can't be governed, now or ever". The actual comedy is precisely conceived in the typical Brazilianate style, which does not allow for high flights of sophistication but gets the message through. As the previously reviewed here O Homem dos Papagaios, fiscal irresponsibility plays an important part in the plot. Here, the twist consists in making the suffering wife the dramatic center, thus deepening the analysis carried out in that movie.
Rating: 58 (up from 57)
English title: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.
Based on the novel by Jorge Amado (1st ed., 1966), which has some plot elements borrowed from or simply coincidental with the 1941 play Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward.
A young widow remarries but her new, methodic, husband can't ease her lust the way her late one, a gambler and a womanizer, did.
An allegory of Brazil, a land which, as the theme-song succinctly puts it, "can't be governed, now or ever". The actual comedy is precisely conceived in the typical Brazilianate style, which does not allow for high flights of sophistication but gets the message through. As the previously reviewed here O Homem dos Papagaios, fiscal irresponsibility plays an important part in the plot. Here, the twist consists in making the suffering wife the dramatic center, thus deepening the analysis carried out in that movie.
Rating: 58 (up from 57)
Sunday, January 10, 2016
O Homem dos Papagaios (1953)
Epaminondas is a man experiencing financial difficulties who crosses paths with a former schoolmate; the latter tries to help him by employing him as janitor in a vacant mansion. The people in the mansion's neighborhood get the idea that Epaminondas is the new owner and he takes advantage of the misunderstanding, with problematic consequences.
A reasonably well-made film, watchable but lacking in real creativity. The curious thing is the similarity in structure with Catch Me If You Can (2002). The film also works as an allegory for the present situation of the country in which it was made (in this case, however, the ending is, for the moment, just wishful thinking).
Rating: 40
A reasonably well-made film, watchable but lacking in real creativity. The curious thing is the similarity in structure with Catch Me If You Can (2002). The film also works as an allegory for the present situation of the country in which it was made (in this case, however, the ending is, for the moment, just wishful thinking).
Rating: 40
Friday, January 08, 2016
Chato's Land (1972)
Western. A half-breed kills a sheriff in self-defense, and some of the town's people form a posse to go after him.
While an entertaining film, it is a bit disgusting to see such intense White self-loathing. The times were of burgeoning liberalism, but Hollywood sometimes preferred to approach such candent themes as segregation and Vietnam by using a third party, in this case Native Americans. Truth be told, a few modern viewers think it was a bit early for such a clear-eyed consideration of that East Asian fiasco and credit the similarities to coincidence.
Rating: 51
While an entertaining film, it is a bit disgusting to see such intense White self-loathing. The times were of burgeoning liberalism, but Hollywood sometimes preferred to approach such candent themes as segregation and Vietnam by using a third party, in this case Native Americans. Truth be told, a few modern viewers think it was a bit early for such a clear-eyed consideration of that East Asian fiasco and credit the similarities to coincidence.
Rating: 51
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