Lisbela e o Prisioneiro

Once again Guel Arraes and Jorge Furtado did it !

Lisbela e o Prisioneiro tells a story in the fifties of a young girl that loves american movies and a trevelling popular artist. Lisbela dreams with hollywood love stories and her story goes like this. Lisbela shows to the audience all movies clichés, but it doesn't mind, the audience loves clichés.

Smart dialogues, fast editing (more than 2200 cuts) and superb acting makes this film a real enjoyment for everyone.

Highly recommended

Before anything, I must say that in despite of the fact that I'm Brazilian, I usually don't like Brazilian movies. They are poor and weak. But this one surprise me.

Technically the movie it's a crap. In both, the script and the scenes in self.

But the plot is involving and fun. The performance of actors was very very good and the timing was perfect. One thing that this movie is not is boring. It was fun and really was able of catch my attention all over it.

Still, one thing bother me huge time on the plot: For God's sake, the state of Espirito Santo it's NOT on Northeast! Wake up dudes! The movie was pretty nice, but watch out for the littles holes on the plot. In this case, a HUGE mistake.

I give 5 from 10 to this movie.

In the country of Northeast of Brazil, Leléu (Selton Mello) is a nomad rascal, traveling through different small towns, cheating people and having one night stand with the local women. While escaping from Inaura (Virgínia Cabendish), who has felt in love with him after a brief affair, and her cuckold husband, the hit man Frederico Evandro (Marcos Nanini), who wants to kill him, Leléu arrives in a small town. There, he meets Lisbela (Débora Falabella), the daughter of Tenente Guedes (André Mattos) and a romantic film lover, who is engaged of Douglas (Bruno Garcia) and is going to get married with him, and, like in a movie with happy end, they fall in love for each other.

"Lisbela e o Prisioneiro" is a delightful romantic comedy, supported by funny characters, situations, expressions and sayings very typical in the country of Brazil. I am not sure whether foreigners would appreciate or understand the richness of our national culture in this movie, but the story certainly reaches persons of different social classes in my country. The cast and direction are excellent and the music score is outstanding, highlight the song "Você não me Ensinou a te Esquecer" ("You Have not Taught me How to Forget You"), of Caetano Veloso. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Lisbela e o Prisioneiro" ("Lisbela and the Prisoner")

Lisbela e o Prisioneiro is a good comedy, it will certainly make you have a very good time when you see it. However, this movie is downsized by two factors: it looks like a made-for-TV feature and Débora Falabella, who plays Lisbela, is not convincing, even with the awful accent she tries to speak. The rest of the cast is excellent, a very good team of actors with an outstanding comedic timing. The screenplay (from a play by Osman Lins) has astonishing metalinguistic ideas and inserts several little black-and-white movies inside the movie, as the soundtrack is very vibrating. Quite good. 7/10

Having seen other movies by Guel Arraes, I thought this felt a little too long. He has not used the great Selton Mello to his full potential, and therefore the movie suffers a little. It was a very funny movie, don't get me wrong, but it could be shorter, more to the point. The scenes from the old movies, IMO, instead of helping the storytelling ended up boring the audience. It is definitely worth watching, if for nothing else then for Selton Mello's acting.