First-time director José Emílio Rondeau and his wife Ana Maria Bahiana, both in their mid-50s and both journalists in real life, somehow managed to raise funds to make this film about their own love story -- the film is like their mutual wedding anniversary present and we're helping pay for it.
The year is 1972 and the place is Rio de Janeiro: untalented working-class amateur musician Snoopy (professional musician Rafael Rocha, in a bland film debut) and upper middle-class cocotte journalism trainee Julia (Dandara Guerra, daughter of actress Claudia Ohana and director Ruy Guerra, channeling her mother in good looks and modest talent) bicker and quibble till they discover they're meant for eternal love, with the military regime as the de rigueur background scenery and the incipient Brazilian pop-rock scene as the love soundtrack.
It's difficult to know what kind of audience is supposed to enjoy this film. The op art opening credits-- the best thing in the movie -- seem to promise a nostalgia piece aiming at the flower-power generation now in their 50s, who might bring their own kids along (teens will probably be bored stiff with so much romantic love and little sex, besides starting to wonder about their parents' allegedly "cool" past). Instead of free love, political activism, liberated sex and experimenting with drugs, what we have here is monogamous, syrupy romantic love and duplicated navel-gazing on unprecedented level.
If the direction is dismal (it's soap-opera standard inept) and the script and dialog are insufferably cliché (you can outguess every next scene), at least the crew is experienced and lends professional quality to the cinematography, art direction and costumes. The young cast basically consists of non-actors receiving non-instructions from a non-director; the results are unsurprisingly nil. There are professional actors in supporting parts (Louise Cardoso, Elizângela, Lucio Mauro Filho) but there's also the most unfathomable film character in ages: Tony Tornado's ex-military-turned-bum-poet -and-revolutionary-activist-against-the-dictatorship is that kind of part that defies all verisimilitude or analysis (he's a maudlin guardian angel in the worst Hollywood tradition and really offensive to real-life political activists who fought against the Brazilian military regime).
"1972" feels like you're paying to crash into the anniversary party of people you don't know, and their idea of fun is showing you their photos, slides and home videos. Ironically, life imitated art: protagonists Rafael Rocha and Dandara Guerra, probably infused in the romantic atmosphere of the film, fell in love during production and are now married with children. So much for free love and liberated sex; I guess romantic love must be contagious.
