A Grande Arte

The path of a pacifist photographer being seduced by the need for justice and the intrigue of a hitherto unknown world of professional assassins plying their trade via the intimate and all-too-personal death delivered by a knife is a very deep experience to watch unfold, and Peter Coyote does it to a tee.

His inner revulsion to the horror of embracing this culture is offset by its fascination as well as the necessity of descending into it to find out the truth behind the killing of model/prostitutes. Slowly but surely you observe the influence of his gaining knowledge and confidence as he is tutored (by a master of the art he just happens to see and captures on camera one day plying his craft), all dragging him down to dive in completely.

The plot thickens as characters are revealed and surprises are forthcoming, all leading to a fantastic final knife-fighting confrontation with the acknowledged master, someone he has known all along but not suspected.

I saw this movie about 10 years ago, but never noted the title until I was trying to order it on-line, and now I have it in my collection. I highly recommend it for its combination of intense drama, revealing close analysis of the process of a sworn pacifist turned to embrace violence as a way of life, amazing fighting scenes, and an uplifting ending. Unforgettable.

This is a well made, low key thriller about knife fighters in Rio. Peter Coyote gives one of his best performances. The only quibble I had with the film is that I wanted to see A WHOLE LOT MORE KNIFE FIGHTING!

After all that great, cool set up and the main character undergoing the Art of Knife Fighting training. I was a bit disappointed we didn't get many more knife fights. This could have been the ultimate knife fighting movie. Still, it's good. But when during the final fight sequence I wanted something more spectacular, blood spraying to the heavens like the end of Kurosawa's Sanjuro. And after seeing the extraordinary knife fighting sequence in Kill Bill I was expecting a little more.

Whoever owns this movie please release on DVD. This is a cult type movie centered around knife fighting. The back story, cinematography, and allure of a dangerous earthly South America draws the viewer into what is probably Peter Coyote's most interesting work. Highly recommended! Very few movies transmit the feeling of a place as well as this movie does so visually. I have been searching for this movie for sometime and wonder why it hasn't been released on DVD. Early Walter Salles is much better than most of what is being shot today. Coyote plays a photographer living in Rio that avenges the death of a prostitute friend and goes on a journey through South America to do so. In the process of this his character learns to fight with knifes and becomes involved in an underworld whose rules he is forced to adapt to and survive.

The first scene of the film is brilliant!!!! A hooker is murdered. One reporter, his friend, decide to try to find her murderer and finds a lot of different friends, places, situations that weren't expected. Specially, a "master" of knives..... Script, scenarios, photography are perfect and make a perfect match.

Tchéky Karyo is frankly OUTSTANDING in his role as Hermes. The disturbing, quiet, intense, dangerous man, superb! I feel this is Peter Coyote at his best, a vulnerable, intelligent, humane man who comes face to face with the reality of life that previously he had only viewed through the lens of his camera.

Again those remarkably talented Brazilian actors and actresses just continuously amaze me. As in another film I very much enjoyed that was shot in Brazil, BOCA, the Brazilian talent is immense. Previous comments have outlined the plot and so forth. I would only add that this film is tense and one comes away from it with a sense of discomfort, and that is something to be so affected by a film when all too often once the house lights come on there is no residual emotional connection.

I noted on the main details page that the Spanish version is several minutes longer than the USA video version and that REALLY irks me. This should be available, as should Zalman King's BOCA, on DVD and in full length, unedited, uncut, uncensored.

If one just wants to waste a couple of hours in amusement this is not the film to see, if one wants to have a visceral reaction and to be taken by one's collar and dragged into the frenetic and all too grim world of the invisible people of a great metropolis then by all means see EXPOSURE aka A GRANDE ARTE.