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Reviews
Cronicamente Inviável (2000)
A crude portrait of a country
It's been only eight days since I finally had the chance to go to the cinema and watch this movie, about which I'd already read A LOT.
'Cronicamente Inviável' ('Chronically Unfeasible' in English) is a harsh punch on the face of Brazilian middle-class. The way reality is displayed in the film suggests that the role of cynicism in our society is more important that one would think.
The great achievement of 'Chronically...' is showing to the world the amount of corruption, violence, racism and hatred every Brazilian citizen carries within WITHOUT trying to formulate a 'feasible' way to reconstruct the country.
The film is not suitable for everyone, but if you've been through pictures like, for instance, the 'Dogma 95' series, you'll find no problem. Foreign audiences would never be able to grasp the real meaning of it, though, without the aid of some basic notions of Brazilian geography and sociology. The way Sérgio Bianchi (the director) relates cities from the Northeast (Salvador), Southeast (Rio and São Paulo, where the story takes place) and South (Curitiba), is vital for a thorough comprehension of the plot. In the same way, the knowledge of Brazilian history proves to be useful when the picture deals with the Indian and Negro issues.
The ending of the film, open and symbolic, stuffs the viewer's brain with intriguing questions worth being thought about.
Ilha das Flores (1989)
A little masterpiece
Here's a work that definitely proves how exciting and questioning a short movie picture can be.
Acting as a director, writer and producer, Jorge Furtado couragely aims a dazzling machinegun at issues as assorted as religion, Holocaust, Brazilian government, poverty, capitalism, and how human intelligence has been used throughout the ages.
Using a dialectical method, and narrating the story in a way that "even a Martian would understand", in the words of the author, the film forges a real cinematographical theorem of Brazilian deplorable situation, borrowing as the stage a neighbourhood in the city of Porto Alegre (one of Brazil's most developed ones, by the way). The degrading scenario, however, would apply to any community on the world in which the effects of money (or its lack) on the lives of its inhabitants are more visible.
In the movie's touching final take, Furtado destroys the bourgeois concept of Freedom, quoting a line from one of Brazil's greatest poetesses, Cecilia Meirelles, and leaves us wondering whether modern 'civilisation' is as far as the human intellect can take us.