Vidas Secas

Considered *the* formative work of Brazil's Cinema Novo. Filmed with compassion and rage at the injustices carried out against the poor. The photography is sublime.

Muito bem filmado. Esteticamente chega a lembrar Satyajit Ray em alguns momentos. Mas a estória em si achei pouco envolvente. Não li o livro, portanto não tenho uma opinião tão concreta quanto à trama.

Very, very depressing film. Somewhat similar to Black God White Devil, but without all the heavy-handed religious allegory. Dos Santos utilizes a much more neo-realist approach, although like Rocha, he gets a bit avant-garde with the soundtrack. Although the film is harsh, I never felt like I was being manipulated. The high-constrast photography gives the impression of heat. You really can feel the sun beating down on you. A very good film, with the only major flaw being some poor dubbing.

Barren lives depicted in a barren film. There's a certain visual poetry here that can be appreciated and the film certainly has some things to say, but the film is too detached from both its characters and the world they live in. It plays as a series of events that are never fully connected to each other and as such I found it hard to connect to them myself.

# 539

#599

545

Raw story of poverty, hunger and despair about a family that arrives in a community after days under the sun, only to find new ways of sorrow -- gambling, drinking and buying shoes to go to church are nice, but overseeing livestock for a rancher and getting beaten by the police for just speaking up aren't Starts with mom killing the parrot ("can't even speak") to eat and ends with them leaving village to face a new long way. Baleia, best dog ever. Best: kid saying hell to understand its concept.

It's a very good film, if taken by itself. If compared to the book, though, it definitely had more potential. Memorable sequences like Baleia's death make up for less impressive and overly extended parts like the prison bit.

559

I cried my eyes out near the ending. Low-key and moving.

This is perfectly good, but felt kind of like a paint by numbers good, depressing film about poverty. I don't necessarily mean that as an insult, just to say nothing stuck out about it. The photography is very good and the performances are strong. If you're into this kind of movie you'll probably like it, and I wouldn't say I disliked it--it's extremely watchable--I just felt like I'd seen movies like it plenty of times before. I found it kind of difficult to connect with.