O Pai da Rita

I wish I had liked this film, or, what would be even better, that the movie made me like it. Skilled casting, nice general plot (two composer partners were rivals in the love a now deceased woman and find out that one of them may be her father), presentation of the changes of samba community in Bixiga, São Paulo, from a generation to another... there are many promising elements, but the outcome seemed chaotic, undevelopped, confusing. There are also many correct political references, but mostly pushing it, not in an organic way. Actually, most of what I have written in my review of 2004 feature film Filhas do Vento, by the very filmmaker Joel Zito Araújo, also applies to this film from 2021: "The film has a fantastic casting and looked promising in its very beginning, but, it did not work. The director, who had only directed previously a documentary about the (lack of) role of black actors in Brazilian television, made an interesting choice: [...] a fictional movie with an almost all-black casting". This movie does not repeat that artificial soap opera style I criticized, but also lacks strength due its lost direction.

Except for the talent and charisma of the trio Wilson Rabelo, Ailton Graça and Paulo Betti, the film is lukewarm, but it exalts Afro culture in a masterful way, and for that reason alone it is worth the ticket price. It exudes traditional samba, carnival, the Afro-Catholic mass was beautiful, the backdrop was weak (Ritinha's search for her father), almost forgotten amidst the frills of Pudim, which is very funny by the way, and the ending, simple and pleasant, made me emotional (which is not very difficult either)... Beautiful, fun and cultural.

Roque and Pudim, composers from the old school of Vai-Vai, share a one-room apartment, decades of friendship, a love for the samba school and a question from the past: what happened to the carnival artist Rita, their passion? The emergence of Ritinha, the carnival artist's daughter, threatens to end this friendship.