Paraíba: Vida e Morte de um Bandido (1966)

A criminal murders his lover for her "betrayal" (which will be explained in the course of the film). He is chased by the police. After taking a bullet wound, he takes refuge in the steeple of a church. There, he recollects his life of crimes, the most memorable events of which are his kidnapping of a journalist and a robbery attempt at a football stadium.

Mediocre criminal drama. The narrative is fluent, but that is the best I can say about this movie, which has a clichéd plot with some rather implausible details. The leading performance is not bad. A more detailed analysis (and a somewhat more generous assessment) may be found here (in Portuguese).

Rating: 31

Vassa (1983)

Based on the play Vassa Zheleznova, by Maxim Gorky, written in 1910 (first version) and 1935 (second version).

The titular character is a woman who is the de facto head of a bourgeois family in 1910s Russia. Her husband is about to be implicated in a charge of abuse of minors. In a later episode, she receives the visit of her daughter-in-law, who is involved with revolutionary activities and wants to take her son abroad. But Vassa doesn't want to part with her grandson.

Compelling character study which might be taken also as a study of bourgeois decadence. The text is strong, the mise-en-scène is impeccable, and the cast is terrific. I am sorry that I don't have any further insightful observations to add, but perhaps Janet Maslin's review, though a little too stern in my opinion, might help my interested readers.

Rating: 69

É de Chuá! (1958)

Two guys need money to buy costumes for their Samba School (Escola de Samba), without which they will not be able to join the Carnival parade. Through the girlfriend of one of them, they hear about a woman who has spent a large sum of money on a Carnival costume. They decide to go over to her house and ask her for a donation. To their misfortune, said woman is really the wife of a thief and swindler who is throwing a jewel exhibition party as a set-up for stealing the jewelry after the show. The Samba School duo manage to enter the thief's house just before the jewel show. One of them mistakes the jewels for candies and ends up swallowing a valuable diamond.

Routine musical comedy with lots of musical numbers, none of them especially noteworthy. The comedy plot revolves mostly around the problem of making the protagonist expel the jewel he has swallowed. It's all very simple-minded and predictable.

Rating: 31

Boris Godunov (1986)

Based on the closet play Boris Godunov, also known as A Dramatic Tale, The Comedy of the Distress of the Muscovite State, of Tsar Boris, and of Grishka Otrepyev, by Alexander Pushkin, written in 1825, and first published in 1831.

Boris Godunov is regent of Russia, and after Ivan's son Feodor dies he ascends to the throne. There is a suspicion that Boris murdered Ivan's younger son Dmitry. Boris's rule is placed under threat when an escaped monk says he is the surviving Dmitry, and claims the throne for himself.

Lazy theatrical adaptation, a uniformly dull film which nevertheless exhibits very beautiful interiors from churches and palaces, and some exteriors which are also impressive. The false Dmitry is as much a protagonist as Boris, something which the shortened title simply ignores. I watched it on a very poorly subtitled copy, which means my assesment could be slightly more approving under better conditions.

Rating: 40

Samba em Brasília (1960)

Teresa, a young woman who is poor and lives at a shanty town, starts working as a cook at an upper-class residence. She suffers sexual harassment from the owner of the house; his son Ricardo also makes advances towards her, although he has an informal engagement to another woman. Teresa is rehearsing to be the standard bearer for the Samba School (Escola de Samba) of her community, but as she begins mingling with her bosses and their milieu, she gradually begins to disconnect from her former social environment. Ricardo starts courting her seriously, and then she has to choose between him and her other suitor from her community.

The cinematography on this is quite impressive, which makes the viewing experience relatively painless. The film is poor, even for Brazilian comedy standards of that era. The supreme aberration one has to withstand is the casting of European-descended and middle-class-mannered Eliana as a very poor woman living in a miserable neighborhood who performs at a Samba School and gives lessons on macumba to the lady of the house at which she works. The dramatic axis of the movie is a trivial examination of social rising, which here is based on looks and also on wits. The film's title bears no relation to the plot, and is only made less absurd by an equally out-of-the-blue musical number with motifs from the then newly inaugurated Brazilian capital.

Rating: 31

Persona (1966)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

An actress suffers a nervous breakdown, after which she no longer speaks and remains in a semi-catatonic state. She is placed under hospital care. Her supervising psychiatrist thinks it would be better for her to stay out of the hospital and suggests she stays at her house on a secluded island. She is accompanied by a nurse. The nurse develops an emotional relationship with her patient.

A film with several interesting ideas and some gripping sequences. The theme of switching personalities was repeated in Performance, which was made around 1968. The theme of a vampiric relationship between two women was frequent in the 60s and later. Mulholland Dr. was avowedly inspired by this film. Other films by Lynch seem to have also been influenced by themes in Persona. Ambiguous feelings towards babies is a theme of Eraserhead; the metamorphosis into someone else as an escape from an intolerable condition is present in Lost Highway. Having characters stand for a philosphical or psychological entity is an idea which goes back to Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (perhaps further back, but I don't know). In 1972, there was the Brazilian film As Deusas which applied that concept (probably under the influence of this very movie). Unfortunately, Persona is sorely lacking in conceptual coherence and dramatic consistence. That was a time when freedom became a sort of motto and moral imperative for well-regarded filmmakers. Reason became a sort of bête noire for them. Most of them returned to it soon after, though. Persona is still an admired film, but I suspect its reputation will gradually adjust to its real worth. 

Rating: 51 (down from 67)

David and Bathsheba (1951)

Second viewing; previously viewed on August 28, 1999.

A king covets the wife of one of his generals. The king takes her as a lover, and she becomes pregnant of him. He tries to arrange things for it to look like the child's father is the woman's husband. When that proves unfeasible he sends the general to a deadly military mission.

This is what happens when Hollywood takes a biblical story and lays a coating of 20th-century ideology on it. The Bible story is basically about abuse of power. The movie has that angle too, but it makes David's relationship with Bathsheba a romantic one (in the sense with which the 20th century has endowed the word "romantic"). Anyway, both in the movie and in the Bible there is ample tolerance for the murderous behavior of kings. Not to mention that war itself derives from an abuse of power. But it would be too much to ask from a 1950s Hollywood movie to go that far. On a more down-to-earth note, a problem with this movie is that it suffers from too much padding with elements extraneous from the main plot, such as the protagonist's life history and poetic inclinations. But it's a watchable movie; the acting, in particular, is quite good, and so are the production values.

Rating: 54 (down from 60)