Budapeste

Considering that Budapest was, in my opinion, one of those novels which look very hard to be adapted to a movie, it was with a lot of curiosity that i went to the movies to watch Walter Carvalho's homonymic adaptation. For my delight, Budapest not only thrives to depict the essence of the novel - with a well-deserved reverence towards Buarque's work - but even takes it into a greater extent. Leonardo Medeiro's acting is superb as it is the cinematography - which is not surprising if you consider that Carvalho is the cinematographer of movies such as 'Behind the Sun' and 'Mango Yellow'. It's funny to think that Chico Buarque, who had never been to Budapest before writing the novel, appears in a cameo role in the Budapest airport.

This is not a statement on making a good movie. There are cases where it is quite different from the book, but resulting in a success as "The Shining", "Amadeus", "Le due vite di Mattia Pascal" among others.

Budapest is extremely presumptuous. I'm not criticizing the slow pace, non-commercial edition and plot, since these are characteristics of quality in many movies. The problem is about a very unconvincing story, with no original arguments. The hostile relationship between writer and his ghost writer has already been addressed before in some movies. Recently, Claude Lelouch's "Roman de gare" show it in a different way, but much more convincing.

The film is a set of sentences that have just intention to create impact as "Drunk the water you had been using to wash your clothes" It's remember that presumptuous attitude of some intellectuals who say things without any sense. when someone pose a question on it, the answer is always pointing to the fact that only those who have the same intellectual level can understand their ideas.

Leonardo Medeiros is a "bis in idem" in his interpretations(Roles). Always the same: eager, strong, arrogance flowing from a clear sense of superiority. Attitude of those who think that they are always doing the right thing. Very similar to what he has done in "Cabra-Cega" among others movies. (Quote on March 2011 - Leonardo Medeiros did a completely different role in "Não é por acaso". Really good movie, in some parts because of his interpretation)

The sum up is a movie in which you've got yourself full of boredom, since you are following through almost 2 hour a character full of contradictions, arrogant, which does not bring anything new to be noted.

Well, this might be the end result, a weird, surreal, and not terribly successful investigation into the sad love lifes of the aforementioned at Budapest I don't know what else to say about this flick except that it's got less naked Hungarian chicks than any other film I've ever seen.

I think it was trying to be a serious but not only could I not understand what was happening, I didn't care. The only plus point was that it was subtitled rather than dubbed. Main boy should have stuck to what he does best - lots of ladies' botBtoms, suspenders and seamed stockings. But the urge to shock and provide unstructured narrative was evident. still worth a watch

I haven't read the book but this is just as well because this film is trying even too hard to fly , with its own wings,out of the boundaries of the written words and is presenting us the struggle of being reborn into a totally foreign and alienating reality where words sound like a river and you only have a knife in your hand to segment the flow and understand what's around and yourself in it. Budapest is a film of new emotions,new colors forever changing (gray ,yellow and possibly red or green...who knows )and while the main character is rebuilding an identity that is like giving birth to oneself time and time again is also rediscovering life, with roles and expectations that might not bear any resemblance to the previous ones....it's a glorious new beginning ,pursued fully by heart, body and mind.

That will come after plenty of disorientation and hard work. The final sense of achievement in the ghostwriter plight of shining of its own light is the same accomplishment of the movie itself that both director and actors alike have rendered in the most heart-warming way.