Change Your Image
migle1
Reviews
Deus é Brasileiro (2003)
Unpretentious and senseful
A visit of God to Earth is used as pretext to take the viewer into a journey across northeastern and northern Brazil. Although the action is placed in Brazil, it could well be a journey across the world, the world outside the great cities of the northern hemisphere.
The film has the quality of being simultaneously profound and a pleasure to watch. It is very modern (or post-modern) in this attempt to target a wide audience but still taking that audience into feelings and thoughts quite outside the thoughts of everyday life; into the things people tend to forget or overlook. Like the films of Kusturica, it is the opposite of the prototypical "intellectual" film: it is not boring, this film appeals to everyone. It also doesn't attempt to conclude with a satisfying, but reducing, statement.
I disagree with the comment of Ernesto Lopes. Fagundes' portrait of God is not at all boring, it's more a portrait of a bored, and imperfect, distracted and Brazilian God. I would also consider very good the "irritating" performance of Wagner Moura and the performance of Paloma Duarte a bit more fragile; but, most of all, I think that the story is not broken up at all -- the cut doesn't focus the details of the pretext story, it does not invite the viewer to pay attention to details, instead, it merely takes the viewer into a simple sequence of scenarios.
I think this film is much more than just amusing. It is often that films intended for wide audiences start off with a very interesting proposal and, in the course of development, loose their sense completely by attempting to fit the standards of normality (take "Meet Joe Black", for instance). This film never looses its sense, the intelligent proposal of the beginning is never betrayed.
Taking into account the relevance of the argument, taking into account that even renowned directors like Polanski often have stories of little relevance, and taking into account that 10 is reserved for Bergman and Fellini; I would rate this film with a 9 if I were allowed.
Fellini - Satyricon (1969)
More information about the plot of Fellini-Satyricon.
In the first few centuries of our age, the roman world was in decay. In one hand there was wealth and abundance, in the other people were loosing their religion, their values and purpose of living. Collosseum games were a great part of people's interest -- some data indicates that, at some point, there were 170 days of games a year; that's 170 without work for citizens. Those who had power, had more interest in their orgies of eating and vomiting and their sexual perversities than in governing the people. Such is the image presented to us by roman poets of this period such as Juvenal.
Today, we'd rather see a good violent film than to watch, say a film of Ingmar Bergman -- which would perhaps give us more insight about life and about our condition as emotional beings -- and football is taking over our lives. Back then, people's interests were about romantic novels about triangular love affairs. This is the plot of Fellini-Satyricon. The screen play is based upon a roman novel, Satyricon, which mocked about those romantic novels and turned them upside down, by presenting the triangular love affair between two men and a little boy. I don't remember the name of the roman author of this novel but I know part of the text was lost.
It is not an action movie, nor narrative, it is purely pictorical. Fellini-Satyricon is the most striking depiction of roman decadence. It's not about historical facts, it's an image of what decadence can be. The relevance of this image is such that we even find an explicit parody of it in "Asterix in Helvetia".
Fellini - Satyricon (1969)
More information about the plot of Fellini-Satyricon.
In the first few centuries of our age, the roman world was in decay. In one hand there was wealth and abundance, in the other people were loosing their religion, their values and purpose of living. Collosseum games were a great part of people's interest -- some data indicates that, at some point, there were 170 days of games a year; that's 170 without work for citizens. Those who had power, had more interest in their orgies of eating and vomiting and their sexual perversities than in governing the people. Such is the image presented to us by roman poets of this period such as Juvenal.
Today, we'd rather see a good violent film than to watch, say a film of Ingmar Bergman -- which would perhaps give us more insight about life and about our condition as emotional beings -- and football is taking over our lives. Back then, people's interests were about romantic novels about triangular love affairs. This is the plot of Fellini-Satyricon. The screen play is based upon a roman novel, Satyricon, which mocked about those romantic novels and turned them upside down, by presenting the triangular love affair between two men and a little boy. I don't remember the name of the roman author of this novel but I know part of the text was lost.
It is not an action movie, nor narrative, it is purely pictorical. Fellini-Satyricon is the most striking depiction of roman decadence. It's not about historical facts, it's an image of what decadence can be. The relevance of this image is such that we even find an explicit parody of it in "Asterix in Helvetia".
Fellini - Satyricon (1969)
More information about the plot of Fellini-Satyricon.
In the first few centuries of our age, the roman world was in decay. In one hand there was wealth and abundance, in the other people were loosing their religion, their values and purpose of living. Collosseum games were a great part of people's interest -- some data indicates that, at some point, there were 170 days of games a year; that's 170 without work for citizens. Those who had power, had more interest in their orgies of eating and vomiting and their sexual perversities than in governing the people. Such is the image presented to us by roman poets of this period such as Juvenal.
Today, we'd rather see a good violent film than to watch, say a film of Ingmar Bergman -- which would perhaps give us more insight about life and about our condition as emotional beings -- and football is taking over our lives. Back then, people's interests were about romantic novels about triangular love affairs. This is the plot of Fellini-Satyricon. The screen play is based upon a roman novel, Satyricon, which mocked about those romantic novels and turned them upside down, by presenting the triangular love affair between two men and a little boy. I don't remember the name of the roman author of this novel but I know part of the text was lost.
It is not an action movie, nor narrative, it is purely pictorical. Fellini-Satyricon is the most striking depiction of roman decadence. It's not about historical facts, it's an image of what decadence can be. The relevance of this image is such that we even find an explicit parody of it in "Asterix in Helvetia".