Mussum, Um filme do Cacildis

Although with not exceptional editing and writing, the documentary enlightens fans of the old Os Trapalhões famous character Mussum about his life before becoming one of the most loved comedic Brazilian artist from the 80s, like myself. It touched my heart to see old footages of the show. Narration by actor Lázaro Ramos is a plus.

For a Brazilian doc which probably didn't have much budget I considered it quite entertaining.

(I don't know why IMDb asks us for 600 characters, it's not necessary to write that much to explain a movie, and as a review reader myself I know sometimes people just don't want to read that much.)

Very nice documentary about the eclectic and iconic life and artistic carrer of great black comedian and samba singer Antônio Carlos Mussum. Besides very informative and with important interviews and representative footage, the movie has a smart text, narrated by Lázaro Ramos, which is clearly inspired in Jorge Furtado's paramount short film Isle of Flowers.

The film relies a lot on an old shooting from the "MPB Especial com os Originais do Samba" from TV Cultura, where we get to hear from the lips of our dear Mussum some of the stories that he went through, unfortunately they are quite shallow since that wasn't the goal of said shooting.

The two main issues with this documentary is the poor writing and the film editing. The script has too many unnecessary references that aren't even related to Antônio Carlos, perhaps the writers tried to make something quirk and funny, but they failed miserably. The film editing is just as atrocious, and it seems like, somehow both the editing and writing weren't done in a matter to match.

Besides his upbringing, his modest teenager years, his first steps to the media, followed by the mainstream media and eventual success, there was a huge moment forgotten on this documentary. In 1983, the group almost broke because one of the four members was cashing 50% of their revenue and the other 3 had to share the other 50%, they tried for some months to be separated, but that affected negatively both sides, however it was another important moment on his career, but since said character that got alone 50% of the revenue was a part of the documentary, it seems they purposefully "forgot" to mention that.

Weak documentary about one of the greatest pop figures on Brazilian history, just as important on spreading Brazilian Black culture to the mainstream due to his historic with samba.

One of the funniest and most popular black musicians and comedians of all time in Brazil and it depressing to see such a bad documentary about him. They show mostly interviews and archive footage about him, but don't dive deeply in his life and his work.

Moreover, the way the documentary just gloss over the blatant racist that Mussum faced during the whole time that he worked with the Trapalhões. And it's much worse than that; the director tries to give the idea that all racism that he faced was what exactly racism, but a way to criticize and fight racism.

Mussum deserves much more than this. This documentary is a disaster and should be avoided.