Piedade

I am not a fan of highly acknowledged Cláudio Assis, Brazilian director of a quite rough and disturbing cinema. Here, with an initially too sluggish pace but afterwards a little improvement, he presents some interesting issues in a not very balanced way. The family story is very nice and it would have definitely worked with a different script and other choices, particularly if we consider that he had great actors such as Matheus Naschtergaele and Irandhir Santos. I also liked the background story of a polluting oil firm trying to have even more profit by achieving by low prices the beach land owned by local population (who had already been damaged by the company itself). That intersection of the family and the capitalist issues was quite promising. However, many scenes that lead to nowhere and some events that have no reason to happen (such as the sudden and nonsense affair between two core characters! I will avoid spoilers here...) seriously compromise the outcome. Although with obviously a very different style, by watching this movie I felt as if Assis made his Almodovarian film: a family melodrama, queer characters in unprecedented situations, plastic sex scenes, and there is even a mother! Anyway, I take the original one: I prefer Almodovar by far.