O Rei do Baralho (1973)

Nearly plotless. The titular "king of the card pack" is a gambler who has a stunningly sexy girlfriend.

Bressane's films (with very few exceptions) follow a certain pattern which has become a veritable formula. His doctrinary master is Brecht, and his fellow cinematic disciples are Bresson, Straub, and Godard. He seems to be very fond of film theory, and also of classical culture. In his early career, he displayed a certain attraction to the lower classes of society. Later on his career his films would abandon this fictive milieu in favor of a decidedly bourgeois one. I find most of his films awful, with few exceptions and only one which I can say I really like (Killed the Family and Went to the Movies). O Rei do Baralho is not one of his worse ones, probably because the director managed to assemble an interesting cast.

Rating: 31