Peereddi
I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Payno
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
billinrio
Sorry Selton, but obviously you're no Charlie Chaplin, neither as an actor nor as a director. You need to learn the difference between "naive" and "simplistic". It was a fatal mistake to decide to utilize the creative cop-out of a narrator, who rather than commenting, only describes, and here sounds as if he's reading from subtitles for the visually impaired: he says "the people wait", and we see people waiting; he says "the little girl smiles", and we see the little girl smiling This becomes very tiresome very quickly. The pandering to each local mayor is amusing, the photography is well-done, and the music track appropriate. But all in all, it's very easy to understand why this movie didn't make the Academy's short list.
Mauricio Marzano
It is, unfortunately, a Brazilian tradition. We are very good in music, TV' s series and soap operas but we are lousy movie makers. Ones can find mistakes in the script, in the sequence, everywhere in almost all films. New and old ones. Brazilian movie makers think they are Italians, but they are not. They think they are Fellini, Antonioni, etc, but they aren't. They are just a poor Selton Mello, and that males a great difference. Difference between somebody behind the cameras and nobody. That is typically a nobody movie. Dull, boring and a never ending movie. It is a movie showing Brazilian inland by a guy that had never been there and does not knows anything about there. The sequences in the countryside of Minas Gerais state are meaningless, false and fake. The dialogs in Portuguese sounds also fake: no local accent, no regional terms, no nothing. The make-up is also fake. There are female countrywomen leaving the crops after a day of work with a very nice hair, straight from a beauty parlor. And that awful movie, like all others in Brazil was financed by different levels of public entities with our people's money. But the core issue of my opinion is that this a RACIST movie. There is a single scene in which the character of Selton Mello, without any dramatic reason, says crystal clearly that black men smell bad. In other words black people stench. And I don't know the reason the movie was nominated to the Oscar, considering we are the second largest "African" Country in the world.
eduardogananca
This is a dramatic masterpiece with beautiful photography, innocent and slight humor, huge symbolism in between the details and a great plot.The ambiance: Brazil's rural areas in the late '80s(?) show a decadence which is perfect for the simplicity which is willing to be transmitted. A search for the essential, for the true vocation, down to the most innocent and oniric will of a human being.Please, don't be shallow to call it "boring", it's not. It's not boring to value the most simple, slight and innocent feelings in instead of big mourning drama or breathtaking hilariousness. You just have to let out your concerns and allow yourself to be involved by the plot like a child. And then, you'll be surprised by having a huge contemplative smile while a small teardrop falls at the corner of your eyes.
micaelrodrigo
In his second work as director, Selton Mello was able to abstract from simplicity and ingenuous humor an exceptional and complete piece. A very short film, without clichés or redundancies, that touches us as well as makes us laugh at simple scenes. Remarks on the Brazilian dramaturgy pearls recovered in unique scenes. We got to understand the clown's agony without getting blue, and we follow his search for a reason. Exceptionally, the first hour with all its monotony flies and we do not realize. As the last half hour conclusion (with a "golden key", as one would say) widens so we can enjoy every second. Simplicity, ingenuity, genius that make reach the completeness of the show.
