Fome

Very innovative film with a beautiful black and white cinematography and two interwoven parts which alternate along its first half: an experiment/fictional one and a documentary-journalistic one. In the former, an artist (Jean-Claude Bernardet) wanders in the streets of São Paulo pretending to be a beggar. It is a quasi-silent film (not really silent because we do listen noises, songs, other people talking) as all other people avoid looking to him and never talk to him. The other part shows an interviewer (Ana Carolina Marinho) talking to different homeless people, always with very strong testimonies. Approximately in the middle of the film, when Bernardet's character meets a friend, the movie becomes pure fiction, full of dialogues until almost the very end! Fierce truths also arise in this narrative part, besides background information about the character.

Cristiano Burlan's "Fome" ("Hunger") is a curious experiment on the life of a man who leaves everything behind in order to achieve a certain sense of freedom in the streets of São Paulo. Walking around the town with his cart, the nomad Joaquim (Jean-Claude Bernardet, also the film screenwriter) spends his days collecting garbage and other materials and lives his life as a beggar on the crowded city of São Paulo, most notably the downtown where he walks by near all the historic places of the city. One night he's interviewed by a documentarist who has a project about people living in the streets - later on the film cuts away to interviewing real street people which is included as part of the woman project.

Who is this man? Why he leads such a life of ordeals, hunger and no promises of goodness? Further away we discover that he had a life before the streets as a college professor, and in one pivotal moment he has an interesting debate with a former student who graduated and become a successful professional on his field and he had the highest regard for his master. The past seems to not have any importance to the old man, who prefers to spend his time pushing his cart, sleeping wherever he can and at times having the luxury of turning down food passers by offer to him. He's too proud to accept help, living on his own bubble and sometimes he finds comfort when he bumps into a friend.

"Fome" presents beggar's life as it is, and it's challenging project for Jean-Claude Bernardet who really spent some time living on the street, he's all in rags and you can notice people looking at him in a disgusting, odd way whenever he's walking down the streets of São Paulo's center. He's all lost, confused and has plenty of work with his supermarket car. Definitely not the kind of life one would pursue but Joaquim feels destined to it and enjoy his current situation. In some brief moments he steps down from his pedestal and accepts help from strangers, and in one of those moments comes the glorious moment where he takes his first shower in ages and he's truly delighted, enjoying himself being clean. Or when he bumps into a musician, of whom he flirts a little, and they walk and sing along a sad tragic music.

Burlan films everything with style and a great sense of darkness which reflects the main character's life and state of mind, no grey areas in this black-and-white world. The cinematography is hauntigly beautiful, artistic and poetic, and a nice way to capture the streets of São Paulo. It was really great watching the many known locations from my city, I could identify many places and really attest that the film follows a reality, it's very realistic and gritty. And for those reasons and more I can truly suggest "Fome", it is indeed one of the greatest Brazilian films ever made, a true and pure state of art reflecting life as it is. 9/10.