This feel-good documentary follows Irlan and Isabela, two teenagers from the violent favelas of Rio de Janeiro, as they pursue their dreams of becoming professional ballet dancers. This inspiring story takes us from Rio - where their communities must raise the funds to support their ambitions - to exhilarating ballet competitions in New York and Switzerland. It's a film about their determination to dance, and the price one must pay for talent, ambition and success.
In a city of more than 20 million people, São Paulo presents many challenges and too few opportunities. For a mother and her four fatherless sons, it’s a confusing metropolis of many temptations and few clear guidelines. Directors Walter Salles (recipient of this year’s Founder’s Directing Award) and Daniela Thomas masterfully show, however, that the city does offer choices besides gangs and drugs. Dario pins his hopes on soccer. Dênis is a motorcycle courier, forced to consider crime in order to support his child. Dinho, working in a gas station, finds hope and meaning attending an evangelical church. Finally, Reginaldo, the youngest, is obsessed with finding his father, knowing only that he’s one of the city’s countless bus drivers. Cleuza, the mother of this difficult brood, is a loving parent but at somewhat of a loss when it comes to giving her boys the support and skills they need. The foundation for this rich familial drama is Salles and Thomas’s probing style, which gets under the surface of São Paulo to show life as it is lived, adding to the film’s astonishing verisimilitude with a cast of largely nonprofessional actors. Sandra Corveloni brings an affecting world-weariness to the part of Cleuza, and deservedly won the Best Actress Prize at Cannes. And those who remember Vinícius de Oliveira, the charming little boy Josué from Salles’s Central Station, will thrill to see him a decade later as the hopeful athlete Dario. Memorable and moving, Linha de Passe is a triumph of neorealist storytelling. —Rod Armstrong
Brazilian artist Vik Muniz creates photographic images of people using found materials from the places where they live and work. His "Sugar Children" series portrays the images of deprived children of Caribbean plantation workers using the sugar from their surroundings. When acclaimed filmmaker Lucy Walker trains her camera on Muniz, he is cultivating a new idea for a project. He knows the material he wants to use—garbage—but who will be the subject of the new series of works?
Waste Land is a wonderfully resonant documentary that chronicles Muniz's journey to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. He collaborates with an eclectic band of catadores, or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, and photographs these inspiring characters as they recycle their lives and society’s garbage. Walker gains fantastic access to the entire process and, in doing so, offers stirring evidence of the transformative power of art and the dignity that can be found in personal determination.
Suzana Amaral's films linger long after the closing credits. They haunt you: characters who seem merely ordinary people become embedded in your mind. Amaral's feature debut, The Hour of the Star, was released when she was fifty-three and became a unique and surprising hit. In it, Amaral created a poignant portrait of a seemingly dull character, Macabea, an incompetent secretary, that resonated in unexpected ways. More than a decade later, the director released another moving character study with A Hidden Life. Now this accomplished auteur presents Hotel Atlantico, a mysterious and atmospheric journey through the landscape of Southern Brazil. It is a testament to Amaral's great talent that her third fiction feature is screening as part of this year's Masters programme. Hotel Atlantico follows an unnamed man as he wanders through Brazil, living life in the moment without ever having a clear destination. Sometimes referred to as “The Artist” by those who recognize him from a telenovela in which he starred, the man is drifting, taking a voyage of discovery and allowing fate to decide his course. He is always accompanied by death in his travels, from those who expire at his side to those who wish him dead.
There is a palpable Lynchian aura to the film, with a vaguely defined threat seeping through the scenes. At the same time, the narrative and the performers are going with the flow, exuding a “living in the moment” energy that may be due to Amaral's Buddhist beliefs. She elicits wonderfully nuanced performances from her actors. Our Artist seems at times tough and distant, at others vulnerable and kind. The film is infused with humour and sexuality – an unexpected popcorn sex scene in priests' robes is a highlight. Hotel Atlantico explores the mysteries of life through our protagonist's approach to his travels, which are always marked by unexpected adventures. Amaral directs her narrative in an arc without a set conclusion, giving the effect of a journey that continues long after you've left the theatre.
Insolação tells stories of unrequited love. “Love and Loss. Loss, mostly,” says a character. In an empty city, scorched by the sun, the young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover through buildings and endless flatland in search of the ever elusive love. Based loosely on 19th-century Russian short stories, the plots weave and unravel together in the improbable city of Brasilia—a distorted mirror-image of the soviet utopia—located in the heart of the Brazilian desert. Paulo José, the actor whose life is intertwined with the history of Brazilian cinema, plays Andrei, the nostalgic witness of these stories.
As you may know, the percentage of women directors hovers around 9%, which is a ridiculous statistic in 2009 (or ever). It's not (just) that Hollywood is sexist—-if female directors brought in the big bucks on opening weekend, studio heads would certainly sit up and take notice, as might Oscar voters. But how to find out when these films are showing? Well... come here! (Update: Hmm, the same year I start this blog, the Academy nominates TWO female-directed movies for Best Picture! Coincidence?)
