Socrates

Wow, where do I start. This heart felt refreshing movie almost leaves you wanting more when it comes to an end. The Director really took time and saw things through as the acting the visual shots and the storytelling all provide a perfect blend into one beautiful storyline. I've watched this movie three times and it just gets better each and every time this is a film that's perfect for any situation and highly recommended. This Director I will definitely keep an ion for future projects because the mind and creativity is next level. Kudos to the casting crew for such an amazing job and Film that they created. Really amazing work.

Wow....compelling movie to watch, but for all the wrong reasons. It gives a glimpse of dire poverty that exists in Brazil, where even the tropical weather and palms aren't enough to offset the ugliness of it all. The primary lead, Socrates, is a 15 year old kid who suddenly and unexpectedly loses his mother, his only guardian. The movie follows his desperate search for a job in order to keep his apartment and buy food. Who is this actor playing this kid? Every scene looked real, tragic, pathetic, depressing and it left me feeling grateful for all I have, right here in wintry Ohio.

Having come to the showing with any clue of films plot was I can confidently say I was very surprised. The beginning moved a little slow and the cinematography seemed almost primitive (I later learned that was intentional) but otherwise the film ultimately crescendoed into a tour de force. There aren't many films as intimate and visceral as this. More films should have teens and young adults working on the staff to give a different perspective from what film watchers are generally used to

I am tempted to not overuse the word masterpiece, but misused though it is I consider this film to live up to the word. For those who can please see this film, and then again I wonder if it had been a heterosexual youth at the centre of the film it would have had wider acclaim here. The trajectory of the fifteen year old is almost as terrible as the young man in ' Sauvage ' except that the sexual scenes are not made explicit. France is not Brazil, and from what I see here of the homophobia, the betrayals and the abuse of one so young it makes me wonder how anybody at the bottom of the pecking order can survive there. I will not give spoilers, except to say with the sudden death of his mother this youth ( innocent and yet forward when he feels love for another youth ) falls into the many traps that a ruthless society inflicts on him. And there is a love story here, and hope could have been there except for the homophobia which seems intrinsically endemic even in large cities. As for the film itself it is in my opinion flawless, and so is the performance from the youth who has been named Socrates. Wisdom indeed and an inner knowledge way beyond his years. Seeing it in the terrible times we are living through I thought of Brazil now and what is happening there now. Any viewing of the film cannot avoid the political background. It goes way beyond in depth many other LGBT films. Why ? To sum up there is so much else in the scenario beyond homosexuality. Along with my familiar favourites of ' Sauvage ' and ' Theo and Hugo ' it is a rare film of extraordinary beauty. If there was a 10+ it would fall into that category.

Socrates, a good-hearted boy being pushed into manhood the hard way, lurches from crisis to crisis. Then this fairly short film ends.

There was room to tell us more, even while we can probably guess the back-story involving his father. The cinematography is brilliant, and the English sub-titles were precise and colloquial, so that was a big help. Not too unusually for Brazilian films, "Socrates" gives us the feeling of being right there, almost as if it were a documentary. I understand this was a project involving young filmmakers and they should be commended -- it's strong, and would only have been made stronger by filling in bits and pieces of the story.