adrianovasconcelos
Joined Feb 2017
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Reviews914
adrianovasconcelos's rating
I have to say that I have the highest regard for Walter Salles' gifts as a movie director. Back in 1999, I found truly impressive one of his early films, CENTRAL DO BRASIL (CENTRAL STATION), with Fernanda Montenegro delivering one of her most thoughtful and sensitive performances.
As mesmerising as that film was, it came nowhere near the merits and masterpiece status that AINDA ESTOU AQUI (I'M STILL HERE) richly shows from beginning to end.
This masterpiece is anchored by a superb script by Murilo Hauser off the book by Marcelo Paiva, the son of MP Rubens Paiva who was abducted by the Brazilian Military Police from his house in January 1971. The way the police go about it is truly sinister, keeping the family jailed in its own house, not allowing the wife to see the husband, not disclosing any info relating to the abductee's whereabouts, taking even one of the children for interrogation.
There are two towering performances in AINDA ESTOU AQUI: Fernanda Torres, in it almost continuously until the last 15 minutes, and Selton Mello as the luckless MP who quietly tries to help individuals sought and detained by the dictatorship, then with Emilio Médici as Brazilian president.
You can feel the noose tightening around the family, with the authorities showing no concern at all that the family included five teenagers needing food and education. Fernanda Torres plays a highly dignified Eunice as the wife doing all she can to retrieve her husband whilst raising her numerous brood.
Torres delivers a quiet, moving performance in which her eyes tell you more than any words. Slender and elegant, she holds her family together, has to look for work and studies at university to become a lawyer, which she does by age 48.
Cinematography by Adrian Teijido is absolutely top notch, as is the editing by Afonso Gonçalves.
It is not an easy film to watch, bubbling with concealed violence that constricts the family more and more.
I hope today's Brazilian Government watches and takes note of this film's content and message because it depicts a past that simply must not be repeated. There is much to learn from it, and not just by Brazil - by any country in the world, even self-styled "greatest democracies".
Definite must-see. I can confidently predict that no film competing for Oscars this year is better. 10/10.
As mesmerising as that film was, it came nowhere near the merits and masterpiece status that AINDA ESTOU AQUI (I'M STILL HERE) richly shows from beginning to end.
This masterpiece is anchored by a superb script by Murilo Hauser off the book by Marcelo Paiva, the son of MP Rubens Paiva who was abducted by the Brazilian Military Police from his house in January 1971. The way the police go about it is truly sinister, keeping the family jailed in its own house, not allowing the wife to see the husband, not disclosing any info relating to the abductee's whereabouts, taking even one of the children for interrogation.
There are two towering performances in AINDA ESTOU AQUI: Fernanda Torres, in it almost continuously until the last 15 minutes, and Selton Mello as the luckless MP who quietly tries to help individuals sought and detained by the dictatorship, then with Emilio Médici as Brazilian president.
You can feel the noose tightening around the family, with the authorities showing no concern at all that the family included five teenagers needing food and education. Fernanda Torres plays a highly dignified Eunice as the wife doing all she can to retrieve her husband whilst raising her numerous brood.
Torres delivers a quiet, moving performance in which her eyes tell you more than any words. Slender and elegant, she holds her family together, has to look for work and studies at university to become a lawyer, which she does by age 48.
Cinematography by Adrian Teijido is absolutely top notch, as is the editing by Afonso Gonçalves.
It is not an easy film to watch, bubbling with concealed violence that constricts the family more and more.
I hope today's Brazilian Government watches and takes note of this film's content and message because it depicts a past that simply must not be repeated. There is much to learn from it, and not just by Brazil - by any country in the world, even self-styled "greatest democracies".
Definite must-see. I can confidently predict that no film competing for Oscars this year is better. 10/10.
Director Mélanie Laurent is the startlingly beautiful young woman hunted down by Christophe Waltz in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS. I know nothing else about her and accidentally found out that she had helmed GALVESTON.
Sad to say, I did not like it, did not find any point to it, let alone anything resembling a lesson to learn from it. Technically, it is well filmed, and Ben Foster delivers a solid performance. Elle Fanning, as Rocky, acts like she is in a commercial advert most of the time, showing off her leggy assets.
Beau Bridges has a tiny but effective part as a completely soul-less criminal kingpin. Exactly why he wants Foster dead eluded me from beginning to end.
The script by Nic Pizzollato off his own book is pointless at best, and the ending one of the most disappointing copouts I have ever watched. 4/10.
Sad to say, I did not like it, did not find any point to it, let alone anything resembling a lesson to learn from it. Technically, it is well filmed, and Ben Foster delivers a solid performance. Elle Fanning, as Rocky, acts like she is in a commercial advert most of the time, showing off her leggy assets.
Beau Bridges has a tiny but effective part as a completely soul-less criminal kingpin. Exactly why he wants Foster dead eluded me from beginning to end.
The script by Nic Pizzollato off his own book is pointless at best, and the ending one of the most disappointing copouts I have ever watched. 4/10.
Director Anthony Asquith did some fine films like LIBEL, CARRINGTON VC, ORDERS TO KILL, but my favorite is THE WAY TO THE STARS, inexplicably shown in U. S. theaters entitled as JOHNNY IN THE CLOUDS, possibly because the main American character is called Johnny... who, in truth, does not have a particularly convincing part. He is married to, and has fathered children with, one Mary living in the USA, appears to be falling in love with widow Rosamund John, and finally has to make a landing decision that is vert honorable but impacts on him for life.
Michael Redgrave is very good as Rosamund John's pilot hubby who gets shot down and killed, John Mills reliable as ever as pilot cum traffic controller Penrose, the ever wonderful Basil Radford tries to play golf but can't shake off his cricket habits and technique, Stanley Holloway forgets his jokes halfway through telling them... and so you have a terrific ambiance between Brits and Yanks, plus some great airplane flight sequences.
Masterpiece of storytelling, based on a play by Terence Rattigan. First class cinematography and editing. 9/10.
Michael Redgrave is very good as Rosamund John's pilot hubby who gets shot down and killed, John Mills reliable as ever as pilot cum traffic controller Penrose, the ever wonderful Basil Radford tries to play golf but can't shake off his cricket habits and technique, Stanley Holloway forgets his jokes halfway through telling them... and so you have a terrific ambiance between Brits and Yanks, plus some great airplane flight sequences.
Masterpiece of storytelling, based on a play by Terence Rattigan. First class cinematography and editing. 9/10.