I had great expectation. Since I heard about the production of this movie for the first time I had been waiting for it, and I was certain that it would be a remarkable one. Very unfortunately, as I wanted a lot it to be as good as it was important to be, I was wrong.
The general idea is brilliant, and the beginning seemed promising, as art direction is also great, one of the very best qualities of the film. As I love dystopias it made my expectation be high: in a dystopic Brazil in near future, the government enacts increasingly harsher racist laws and decrees against black people, wanting them to "go back" to Africa. A great story could have been shown with that interesting and ironical background.
The problem is that the film has ups and downs, including too many downs, and script is the worst of them. Characters are undeveloped, with no arc or with changes which are sudden and unconvincing. Acting is mostly good, as there are many great actors and actresses, but bad dialogues and a clumsy direction led to some very bad scenes too. Probably due the different ordering in which the scenes have been shot and inserted in the edition, there are some absurd inconsistencies in characters' mood, what is a Z-film problem.
Dialogues are mostly poor, with many cliché lines. Indeed, it seems that there was the intention to include in the script everything filmmaker considered important, and it was made without the care of having a coherent and fluid outcome. Additionally, too many side stories, some of them seeming promising, were abandoned, and the one centered in Antônio and André's resistance was not well built.
The parallel of two dramatic situations, one by the action of the state and the other by rebels, is absurd and even dangerous, reminding (certainly unintended, as this is not Lázaro Ramos's view) the speech of the cowards who supported military dictatorship in Brazil and state that "both sided exaggerated".
I may also add that, although police action in the film is brutal, it is still less violent and disrespectful for human rights than what is usual in Brazilian peripheries with majority black population. That is bizarre, as in a dystopia the problem should have been increased and not softened. Indeed, real-life poor black people would never behave among many armed cops without the fear of being murdered or tortured.
To resume, this was a missed opportunity, as Lázaro Ramos, one of the best Brazilian actors, had much more media and financing than usual in his debut as director.
I hope in a near future we may have a remake of this film, keeping the great central idea but being developed with a mature script and direction.
