Review by Rodrigo_Amaro

A film showing with the latest from world cinema just opened with countless titles available, and one of the titles was a gathering of six short films directed by Radu Jude, which included this short and this was the very first to be presented. Well, I went completely blinded and without knowing anything about it, just went ahead because I'm curious mind when it comes to films, I can watch anything...but it doesn't mean I can accept everything. I was not impressed with this one - I'll explain later on - and went to watch the second short (which was slightly better, thumbs up to it) but didn't stay for the other four short films.

"Caricaturana" deals with an idea from Soviet director Sergei Eisenstein dreaming about a popular French character popular in some charicatures, a terrible swindler, and mixing with different thoughts and concepts and followed with the news of its time. The director actually uses news of our time and mixes with the old cartoon. Cool, right? Nope.

Boring, unfunny and never revealing about anything. While the old drawing impress us each time they are presented, there's plenty of artistic quality in there, but the jokes and news references attached to them don't cause any effect, it's almost like telling a joke without giving a proper ending. One I can remember revolves a guy who complains to his dentist that his damaged teeth weren't taken out but the good ones were, and the dentist replies something that not only wasn't funny or thoughtful but it didn't address any valid criticism about our flawed society. A memorable one (the news, not the drawings since it kept changing) was related with a man who was suing Gwyneth Paltrow due to her "vagina-scented" candles exploding on him - I had to research this, it happened with a man in Texas in 2021. Along with that news, which kept repeating, there was several drawings with gestures thought out by Eisenstein.

I was not moved by it, didn't laugh once neither felt as if learning anything new. And let's face it: just showing slide after slide, well, anyone can make this, either on Power Point or editing in some movie maker available. Yet Mr. Jude got the tools and released on selected theaters and it's now part of the Mostra of São Paulo.

Trust me, it doesn't need views neither from curious minds. There's so much better out there...3/10.