What was that, anyway? Fact or fiction? Real of half real? And if those doesn't matter, at least tell us what's the purpose of such experiment? It left me intrigued for a while but didn't caused me any everlasting effect, haven't teach me anything. But it showed something. A few images well put together and that was it. "Cinema Inocence" tries to be a Godard film but fails so bad because of its lack of message and lack of purpose. It's just a bunch of images edited altogether along with a sort of documentary about a film editor known for his many works editing classics of Pornochanchada - for those unfamiliar with the name/genre it's the Brazilian version of those comedies filled with eroticism or sexual jokes just like the "American Pie's" or "Porky's" we all know. Those films are called by director Julio Bressane as being the "Cinema Inocente" (innocent cinema) of the title. By that definition he's saying those are harmless movies (but motive of plenty of controversial and criticism back in the days of the military regime).
We're presented to Radar (Leovegildo Cordeiro) who in real life was really a film editor and an actor known for playing this character in many films, and we meet him in the lion's den, his editing room, where he tells a little about his career in between spasms of memory and annoyance with the interviewer (played by the director). He claims to have edited hundreds of films but once you check his page on this site you can find less than fifty (in his defense, it might be truth. Just depends on the Brazilian contributors to find and add more titles to his credits). And there's one interviewer with a French director (or an actor playing one) but such interview isn't translated in no possible way - the version I saw had Italian captions but since I don't speak Italian nor French it was a pointless chapter in the film. In between those moments there's plenty of images of films from the silent era, plus random images of places, other movies, strange music and shouts from the director supporting the innocent cinema.
I can accept surrealism or frames of deeper construction and meaning from masters like Glauber Rocha or Mario Peixoto but Bressani doesn't convince with this wreck. It pulls some curiosity from the viewers for quite a time but then it just dies on you, with nothing to say or show. Cinema can be senseless sometimes but that doesn't equal leaving its viewers without feeling a thing. We must feel something from the experience, laughter, cries, joy, angry, complete, inspired, curious, in fear. I've got nothing with this. It's one of those experiments like the director had the money and the camera and decided to film everything around him and call it a movie. I can do that and better. 4/10
We're presented to Radar (Leovegildo Cordeiro) who in real life was really a film editor and an actor known for playing this character in many films, and we meet him in the lion's den, his editing room, where he tells a little about his career in between spasms of memory and annoyance with the interviewer (played by the director). He claims to have edited hundreds of films but once you check his page on this site you can find less than fifty (in his defense, it might be truth. Just depends on the Brazilian contributors to find and add more titles to his credits). And there's one interviewer with a French director (or an actor playing one) but such interview isn't translated in no possible way - the version I saw had Italian captions but since I don't speak Italian nor French it was a pointless chapter in the film. In between those moments there's plenty of images of films from the silent era, plus random images of places, other movies, strange music and shouts from the director supporting the innocent cinema.
I can accept surrealism or frames of deeper construction and meaning from masters like Glauber Rocha or Mario Peixoto but Bressani doesn't convince with this wreck. It pulls some curiosity from the viewers for quite a time but then it just dies on you, with nothing to say or show. Cinema can be senseless sometimes but that doesn't equal leaving its viewers without feeling a thing. We must feel something from the experience, laughter, cries, joy, angry, complete, inspired, curious, in fear. I've got nothing with this. It's one of those experiments like the director had the money and the camera and decided to film everything around him and call it a movie. I can do that and better. 4/10
