Carnaval Blues
I dont know if anyone else went to this screening this past Friday, but i thought that i was something worth going to, after all we are in a Brazilian cinema class. The film was full of modern brazilian culture and liveliness that it has to offer. Here is the plot line of the film: Guillermo Locke is an American anthropology student traveling to Brazil for the first time to study its "culture of violence" for his thesis. " Mestre" is a poor but respected community leader and master teacher of Capoeira (ka' pou ey' ra), a Brazilian tradition of martial arts and dance. Namibia is Mestre's whimsical 12-year-old daughter. The lives of all three are changed forever as they cross paths amidst the paradoxical, spiritual, and celebratory backdrop of Carnival.
The film was great except that when i was really getting into the film it ended. I was not sure for most of the film what was really going on. There was a lot of cross-cutting between film and video for a "doc-in-film" look. The concept of this was great, but was not executed as well as i thought it could have been. The end sequence of this film was beautiful and well composed. This film was directed by Miguel Silveira who is a teacher here at Columbia, so check out the film if you want at: http://www.baixosantadoaltogloria.com.br/ I know this was not a film we screened in class, but i thought it tied in well. Until next time, take care!
John~
posted by John at 9:56 PM
1 Comments:
I was a little disappointed by this film. I thought that the story was convoluted and that it tried so hard to make a "real" portrayal of Brazil but at the same time was kind of narrow in what it showed us. I wondered if this film was all that different than the documentaries that it was criticizing. Perhaps this film would mean something else to someone who was from Brazil. The filmmaker talked a little bit about breaking down the walls between classes, but I didn't feel like there the film offered much resolution in that respect.
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