Ilha das Flores

Not that I've seen a lot, of course. I caught this short in my documentary film class at the beginning of the semester. Unfortunately, I never saw another film better than this one. If you can find it, definitely check it out. The film says more about the human condition in fifteen minutes than most similarly themed films say in two hours. Devilishly humorous, the film hints along the way that there is more at stake than the running joke about a tomato would indicate. It's crucial to know as little as possible, so if you have a good independent video store nearby, seek it out and don't ask questions.

Very seldom is one given the opportunity to watch a documentary like Ilha das Flores. It is less a TV product than an essay not written but filmed, and well filmed indeed. The ideas displayed throughout barely quarter an hour are so many and so profound that you might need more than one view to assimilate them all; but the script is so agile that you will never grow bored. Instead, even if you are not in the mood for documentaries at the beginning, will find yourself deeply interested in this humble production within minutes, if not seconds. But remember, you are not dealing with an entertainment product but with one of the best lessons of ethics you might come across ever. Anyway, that you will realize for sure at the end of the film, when its ideas, lingering in your head, will keep you pensive for long.

Here's a work that definitely proves how exciting and questioning a short movie picture can be.

Acting as a director, writer and producer, Jorge Furtado couragely aims a dazzling machinegun at issues as assorted as religion, Holocaust, Brazilian government, poverty, capitalism, and how human intelligence has been used throughout the ages.

Using a dialectical method, and narrating the story in a way that "even a Martian would understand", in the words of the author, the film forges a real cinematographical theorem of Brazilian deplorable situation, borrowing as the stage a neighbourhood in the city of Porto Alegre (one of Brazil's most developed ones, by the way). The degrading scenario, however, would apply to any community on the world in which the effects of money (or its lack) on the lives of its inhabitants are more visible.

In the movie's touching final take, Furtado destroys the bourgeois concept of Freedom, quoting a line from one of Brazil's greatest poetesses, Cecilia Meirelles, and leaves us wondering whether modern 'civilisation' is as far as the human intellect can take us.

That's the kind of movie you'll see quite by chance, one evening on television. And you will never forget it.

"Ilha das flores" is the story of a tomato, from the field where it is cultivated to the dustbin, and beyond. It's fun, and, at the same time, it tells you a lot about the economy and the Brazilian society. What is really unique for a documentary is that the story is as pleasant to follow as in a fiction, and the end is one of the more stunning and moving end I have ever seen in a movie.

This short is a fine example of people with something crucial to say, having to bend to commercial whims of entertainment in order to hold the audience's attention span long enough to get the message across. It is remarkably witty, and runs at a fanatical pace. The jokes cause a smile, but when the holocaust clips arise, we get the clue that there are weighty matters at stake here. People need to see films like this. Remarkably effective.