São Paulo Sociedade Anônima (1965)

Second viewing; first viewed on April 1, 2001.

Carlos has several lovers and little money. He meets Luciana, who is a respectable girl. Carlos gets a job in an automobile factory.

Ambitious attempt at combining psychological drama with social panorama. The main character is a chronic malcontent who gets on everybody's nerves. The events are set to the backdrop of the Brazilian transition to a modern society in the late 1950s. The film is excessively discursive but a masterpiece comparatively to the average Brazilian production. It has strong characters and articulates a coherent social critique.

Rating: 68 (unchanged)

Relatos salvajes (2014)

English title: Wild Tales

(1) The passengers on a flight find they all have something in common. (2) A waitress at a roadside restaurant recognizes one of her customers. (3) Two drivers on a deserted highway conflict with each other. (4) An implosion expert has his car towed while he is buying a cake. (5) A wealthy man tries to free his son from jail after he hits and runs on a pregnant woman. (6) During her wedding reception, a bride finds out about her husband-to-be's infidelities.

'Loss of control' is what the tagline wants us to believe this film's theme to be. Many commenters have mentioned revenge as well (or instead). I have to disagree strongly with both. I live in Brazil and this film captures a portion of my country's reality just as well as it presumably captures Argentina's. And yet, I do not picture Brazilians as particularly out-of-control individuals, or especially prone to vengeance. I suppose Argentinians wouldn't fit in those categories either. It is important to distinguish the essential theme, as opposed to contingent ones. What I see here is a society that has lost its bonding element. And when that is lost, people turn against people. Men against women. Rich against poor. State against citizen. And so on. Earlier works which dealt with related issues (and which have been mentioned in connection with this film) are Duel and Falling Down. Probably there are others.

Rating: 60

River of Death (1989)

A man guides a heterogeneous group of people with diverse interests on a search for a lost city in the Amazon jungle. An escaped Nazi doctor is said to be hiding there.

Third-rate adventure which would probably be less painful if watched with the audio switched off. It is basically a collection of very old clichés, some of which are geographically or anthropologically wrong. The cinematography is good, though.

Rating: 30