Ariel (1988)

A miner loses his job when the mine at which he worked is closed. He decides to relocate to a big city. On the way he is robbed of all his money. In the big city, he gets a job, gets a girlfriend, and gets into trouble.

In one scene, we see the main character reading a comic book in jail. In another, it is his girlfriend's son who is reading one (this time the comics are recognizable as Falk's The Phantom). The mental level of all the characters, no matter their age, is thus revealed as the same, and it is only natural that the narrative style does not stray from a comic book's. There is nothing remotely challenging about Ariel. For a Brazilian local, there is a certain strangeness in the notion of social problems such as the ones depicted in this movie happening in a country such as Finland. In the end, the destination is Mexico and all I could think is that this time he better keep out of jail, because, after a stay in the Finnish penal system, he wouldn't enjoy much the Mexican one.

Rating: 40

Yentl (1983)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; first viewing of the extended cut; previously viewed, dubbed in Portuguese, on May 8, 2002.

Based on the short story Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, first published in 1960, and on a play derived from it.

In 1904, a Jewish woman living in Estern Europe wants to study the Torah and other related texts, but Jewish law forbids women from doing it. After her father dies, she takes a man's identity and enters a yeshiva (a school for the study of traditional texts of Judaism).

I didn't find the experience of viewing this for the second time too unpleasant. It is not badly made, and, for the most part, is easy to follow and reasonably well written. The actors, too, perform well enough. The songs are solid, both in music and in lyrics. Still, I don't see what made me like the film as much as I did on my previous viewing. Its dramatic limitations are evident. What begins as a paean to intellectual curiosity shifts very quickly into one of those farces about crossdressing that have been so popular since the days of Shakespeare. Only one year before Yentl's release in theaters there was Tootsie, which has similar plot elements, but with the sexes interchanged. Unlike Tootsie, however, here one does not have the protagonist becoming a better human being through impersonating an opposite-sexed person. The point in common to all those works mentioned (and others such as Grande Sertão: Veredas, a novel by Guimarães Rosa) is the development of sexual attraction between two people one of which thinks they are of the same sex. Yentl, however, is not particularly exciting in its flow of dramatic or comic events. The ending is somewhat fraudulent, because I never knew the American branch of Judaism to be more liberal than its European counterparts. But then again, I'm no authority on the subject.

Rating: 50 (down from 68)

La sindrome di Stendhal (1996)

English title: The Stendhal Syndrome.

A police officer suffers from the titular disorder whereby an individual is prone to fainting or hallucinating under the effect of artworks. She is working on the case of a serial rapist turned serial killer and her investigation somehow gets entangled with her particular health condition.

I just couldn't find enjoyment in this. When one reads the premise, it looks full of potential, but that is misleading. Actually, that is one of the characteristics of the giallo genre: to coat a formulaic plot of policework and shocking violence with some extraneous 'arty' themes or environments. To be fair, it isn't an extremely bad movie and watching it is possible without great suffering. Let's just say that, should one make a movie out of one's filmviewing life, the experience of viewing this film will end up in the editing room floor.

Saw an English-dubbed version.

Rating: 30

The Woman (2011)

While hunting in the woods, a man spots a woman who appears to be living as a wild beast. He captures her and takes her to his cellar, where he keeps her as a captive, engaging his entire family in the process of taming her. Some unexpected events, however, lead to a crisis.

Interesting, if overly violent, familial horror drama. To be frank, all through my viewing I probably misunderstood some of the aspects of the plot and consequently the ideology of the movie. Some viewers seem to have suffered the same setback. Thus I mistook this film for a brutally feminist manifesto, but certain plot points introduce some nuances into it which put that interpretation into question. I will not enter into much detail here, as some readers might want to watch the movie with a fresh mind, and have a full enjoyment of all its surprises. Suffice it to say that a certain plot twist hints at an explanation (which of course is not a justification) for the behavior of the main male character, and that explanation involves his wife. I say 'hints' because the exact way things happened is not explicitly stated in the movie. Anyway, to sum my assessment up, this is a movie which starts out as an intelligent and intriguing drama and shifts into a shock-oriented horror movie in its latter half; that shift is not totally felicitous.

Rating: 60

Hello, Dolly! (1969)

Based on the homonymous Broadway musical (1964), which was in turn based on the play The Matchmaker (1954) by Thornton Wilder, in turn based on that same author's earlier play The Merchant of Yonkers (1938), itself partially derived from the musical play Einen Jux will er sich machen (tr. He Will Go on a Spree) (1842), by Johann Nestroy, which was, in turn, and finally, an adaptation of the play A Day Well Spent (1835), by John Oxenford.

A seed merchant from the provinces seeks a wife in the big city. Coincidentally his employees profit from his absence to look for adventures in the same city as him. In a final coincidence, his daughter elopes with her sweetheart, both taking that same destination. A matchmaker has designs on marrying said merchant; chance and her interference will bring them all together.

This is a seriously flawed musical, for reasons which have been abundantly covered in reviews. It's still a watchable movie, its main assets being a few nice songs and a stunning production design.

Rating: 40

Lenin v oktyabre (1937)

English title: Lenin in October

Lenin's life in the days preceding the October 1917 revolution in Russia. He is hunted by the authorities, who even order a hit on him. The taking of St. Petersburg by the Bolsheviks is the climax of the film.

Well-made blend of intimate portrait and historical epic. Although it is somewhat depressing to watch this kind of story while knowing how the Soviet regime turned out to be and how it ended, it is not hard to concentrate on the adventurous side of the Revolution and get entertained by it. There are three versions of this film and I have no idea which one I watched. There is one mention of Stalin that I can recall and I have not spotted him on the screen, but then I was busy reading the subtitles, so I may have missed him.

Rating: 52

Mandacaru vermelho (1961)

A young woman who has been promised in marriage to a man elopes with another. The eloping woman is an orphan whose parents were killed in an ambush motivated by an extramarital affair which I am not sure I fully understood. Her aunt gives chase to the couple, aided by her employees.

Coming across as poorly conceived, especially in its conception of characters and their behavior, this film reportedly wasn't properly scripted, having been mostly improvised by its director. The result is far from brilliant or even entertaining, but, at least for Brazilians like me, makes for a curious viewing. The arid landscapes of Northeastern Brazil, as captured by its competent cinematography, are aesthetically pleasing enough.

Rating: 32

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)

Biutiful (2010)

A man finds he only has a few months to live. He is separated from his wife and takes care of their two children. He works supervising the illegal work of illegal immigrants. He reunites with his wife for a while.

Not a very interesting film. It seems to believe that conveying intense emotion is enough to grab a viewer's attention. The plot has some interesting elements, but apparently there was not the will to make them into an exciting whole. Too many subplots lead nowhere  and the main plot (whatever you think it is) doesn't lead anywhere very interesting either. Anyway I gathered from the movie that immigrants are not only good but necessary, because without them who will take care of our children when we die?

Rating: 37

The Pelican Brief (1993)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; previously viewed, dubbed in Portuguese, on August 15, 2001.

Two Supreme Court justices are executed. A law student does some research work on who might want to get rid of two men who diverged in almost every issue; she comes up with a suspect. She writes a brief detailing how she came to that suspect. After that brief reaches powerful hands, people around her start to die and she must run for her life.

This is a reasonably well-made thriller, but only in a purely mechanical sense. In what regards the plot, the whole thing is very flawed in an essential way. After the law student has divulged her theory to the press, she is no longer a worthwhile target, so the notion that the bad guys would chase her relentlessly and indefinitely is ludicrous. In fact, even before that, they couldn't know who else knew about her findings, or even would come to the same conclusions as her on their own. After all, she used only public information on her research. It is true that, in midfilm, she does come into possession of some relevant material items, but she only gets to that position because she was being chased, so a misconception somehow made the plot become more plausible. But, if you can get past that, the film does move along in an agreeable pace, and many individual sequences are entertaining. The more, say, personal, or emotional, aspect of the characters is a weak spot of the movie, and does not come across as credible. Also, there is a bizarre product placement in action here, where the product is the main actress. Through compliments from at least one other character in the movie, the filmmakers seem to want the audience to believe she is a stunning beauty. By what one reads in the press from that period, and even later, it seems to have worked.

Rating: 42 (unchanged)

Vai que é mole (1960)

Three friends and partners in crime are released from jail on the same day. One of them receives the news that a relative of his died and named him a guardian of her young son. The chief of their gang wants to use the boy as an assistant in their thieving operations. After one of the three criminals decides to give back to its owner (a chorus girl) a purse they stole from her, the TV station for which she works decides to put him and one of his partners (the boy's father) in a show about honest people. Of course the girl doesn't know that they stole her purse, and they don't tell her either.

Although the plot is weak, relying as it does on every cliché we are used to in Brazilian comedies of that period, the film acquits itself a little better than its similars. It's basically a film for kids, or for adults with a kid's mind, but within that limited scope it manages to develop situations that signal its awareness of the social injustice in Brazil, which was acute in 1960 and still is. The emphasis is on slapstick and the pace is kept in a fast mode, only letting up for the occasional musical number.

Rating: 33

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

A reconstruction of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the events which preceded it.

This is a well-made war drama. It must be said that the first section, so to speak, of the movie, which accounts for about two thirds of it, and which explains how a series of errors on the part of the Americans contributed to the Japanese success, is quite dull, although I wouldn't know how to improve upon it. The last section is considerably more exciting.

Rating: 51

Samson and Delilah (1949)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 (probably) and 1986.

The Hebrew Samson gets involved with a Philistine woman, and then with another. But the Philistines are after him for his violence, and they use the latter of those women to capture him.

This biblical tale is a fantasy on the situation of living as a conquered or oppressed people. Closeness to the ruling ethnicity is at once dangerous and alluring. Many women lived this same dilemma in the war which ended four years prior to this film's release, and the ones who fraternized with the German enemy were shamed and punished. In the case of this movie it is a male who does the reproachable fraternizing. The fantastic element is given by the outstanding individual power of the protagonist. As a visual spectacle I found this film to be quite agreeable. As storytelling goes it does not really stand out.

Rating: 53 (up from 48)

Zé do Periquito (1961)

*spoilers below*

Zé Nó works as a gardener at a high school. He is somewhat infatuated with a girl student named Carmen, and that becomes an object of derision by Mexerico ('Gossip'), one of the boy students. Mexerico suggests to Zé Nó that he quit his job and try to make a fortune at some other line of activity, so that he becomes attractive to Carmen. Zé Nó accepts his suggestion and travels to a small town where he tries to earn a living by playing the barrel organ on the street. One local homeless woman nicknamed Pelanca ('Fold of Skin') approaches him and proposes a partnership which she says will make them rich. Pelanca knows every dirty secret of each person in town, and she helps Zé Nó establish a street commerce of selling little pieces of paper containing 'clairvoyant' information about the 'present, past and future' of each person. The fraud is enhanced by making a parakeet more or less randomly choose with its beak each piece of paper from a pile inside a box. Soon everyone becomes aware of the evil behind the façade of respectability of their fellow citizens, and that leads to feuds and enmities. Zé Nó returns to his earlier town with a sack of money. He proposes to Carmen, whose father is in a terrible financial situation, and sees Carmen's marriage with Zé Nó as a way out of his troubles. Carmen likes Zé Nó but is not attracted towards him; thus, she does not at first feel inclined to accept the marriage proposal. At her father's insistence, however, she accepts it. At the wedding reception, Mexerico plays a prank on the newlyweds and their guests: his wedding gift package when opened releases little mice which spread across the ballroom. After the mice are gone, Mexerico offers Zé Nó another package which he says has talcum powder which will take away the smell left by the mice. But it is actually itching powder which makes all the guests scratch themselves. Zé Nó returns to the small town where he made his fortune to collect Pelanca. By this time, the townsfolk have turned their rage against Zé Nó for seeding strife among the people. When Zé Nó shows up there, they chase him and he must hide from them. He and Pelanca leave town as fast as they can. Zé Nó then employs Pelanca as a maid at his home. Some days later, Zé Nó invites his wife Carmen to go out to the beach with him, but she says she prefers to stay at home. Pelanca then talks to her and scolds her gently for not going out with Zé Nó. After a while, Carmen's former school friends appear at her house and ask her out to the beach, where they hold a 'surprise' for her. Carmen decides to go with them, with plans to join Zé Nó at the beach. Once there, however, another devilish scheme by Mexerico unfolds: they take Carmen on a motorboat ride and then dump her on a stationed boat inside which is her high school sweetheart. Carmen gets furious and jumps to the sea, but before she can do it Zé Nó, who is looking through his binoculars from the shore, spots her and her former boyfriend inside the boat. When he gets home, they fight and she returns to her parents' house. The school principal happens to be visiting there, and he convinces Carmen to make up with Zé Nó, if she really likes him, which she says she does. Zé Nó says he will donate to charity all the money he earned with the 'clairvoyant' tickets, and he will only take Carmen back if she does not mind being poor. She says she doesn't. Zé Nó goes back being a gardener at the same high school he worked at before.

*end of spoilers*

This is probably the weirdest of all Mazzaropi movies which I have seen. The insertion of musical numbers at the most unexpected moments makes it even more bizarre. Every character except the female protagonist 'Carmen' seems to be a scumbag in this movie; as the film approaches the end, however, the film struggles to twist things in such a way that evil is concentrated in one single character ('Mexerico'), making him a sort of dramatic scapegoat. I didn't find this movie funny, let alone dramatically moving. But it is eccentric enough to arouse one's curiosity.

Rating: 32