Macunaïma

I discovered this movie by chance so many years back when I was watching a film by Rogério Sganzerla. The first time I ever saw this movie was a hacked-up version of a torrent file. Even with all its naughty bits cut out, I could see this movie was a definite cult classic. When I finally got to see the whole thing during the lockdown, I could not stop laughing. It is a Bizarre political reading of Brazil with a lot of satire and is a kind of folk fairy tale told in a style that blends Terry Jones, Tomás Gutiérrez, Alea Mario Monicelli, Ulrike Ottinger with Jean-Luc Godard. Two major themes form the center of the film. On the one hand it is about racism, social class and anthropophagic portrait of Brazil. The second, major topic deals with miscegenation. For this reason, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade shifts the narrative perspective towards the big city after black Macunaíma turns white. As for the rest of the film, it's a mixed bag of weirdness--all cloaked in a strange and bizarre plot involving weird encounters and surreal sequences supported with an amazing soundtrack. In summary: if you're looking for a serious film that has terrific visual effects and absolutely no gaping plot holes, look elsewhere. I'd even go so far as to say that this film intentionally utilized poor visual effects and more than a few plot holes just to make the movie weirder. This is a big plus, and makes it all the more remarkable, because you can tell this was done on a small budget, but makes the best of it.

If you like films like Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain", you will love Macunaima! Overall just a very fun spirited movie, and a very interesting perspective of the Tropicalia movement of the late 60's and early 70's of Brazil.

This film is hard to categorise because one can say that it is sincere, naturalist, mocking of urban life of metropols in Brazil; while being very entertaining and relatively easy to watch. Not quite knowlegdeable what is going on at that side of the ocean, I can only find the resemblances with my own country (Turkey), which is on par with Brazil in terms of industrialization, wealth and education. What you see in the film is streets are dangerous in many ways. Thievery, trickery and violence are present and politics are involved too. But it is very fortunate that this film is not totally a cold-hearted judgment of society of Brazil. Fantastic elements are incorporated so well that the result is very amusing in some sequences but it still leaves ashes in your mouth. Characters are greatly genuine and colorful and and script makes you curious about the book it is based upon. You just wanna watch more and you stumble upon its anarchic and modernistic wisdom. You needn't dig very deep to get the best out of this movie yet it touches nicely to the matters of society in Brazil. As you watch just be curious more and more about Brazil's problems. A very impressive movie hard to fault that deserves 8 out of 10.

Macunaíma is one of the weirdest films I have watched and, I may also state, is a quite overrated movie. An adaptation (probably a very personal and loose one) of modernist classic novel by Mário de Andrade (which I did not read), Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's Macunaíma is less magic but not more realist. Indeed, it seems to seek a cubist or mosaic-like outcome, such as the books's mood: it does it through changes in style and in characters' traits, and through a very chaotic story. Bright and colourful, noisy and alegoric, it was a meeting of Cinema Novo with Chanchada, two opposite Brazilian cinema "waves". Besides that, in many situations it emulates animated cartoon aesthetics, although doing it with live action in genrrally raw sets. It could have been nice, but serious sins led it to what I consider a failure. First of all: racism (the hero is considered ugly when is born as black but when becomes a handsome prince he is white Paulo José; not to mention the native characters who are whites or blacks); if there were ironies and sarcasm, it was supposed to be more clear and not open to be taken as acceptable. Secondly: mysoginy; there is a gag on sexual harassment and rape (not to mention the psychological role of all women in the whole movie)! I do not know if racist and sexist traits were already present in Mário de Andrade's book, or if they were there but in a more critical view of society and as an undoubtful mockery. The third sin is that the absurd situations, be them surrealist of absurd, should have been more well connected to each other. Unfortunately, seriously disagreeing with Brazilian experts, I think it lays far from what should be expected due the importance of the director and many actors: besides Grande Otelo, the best ever in Brazilian cinema and television, there are Hugo Carvana, Paulo José, Joana Fomm, Rodolfo Arena, Jardel Filho, Milton Gonçalves...

I'm not sure if I understood even half the cultural and political references this film makes. After all it is Brazilian and from the late 60's. In many ways a product of that era but because it seems to be based on fairy tales or legends there's an interesting timeless quality to it as well. That and the outrageous sight gags, combined with crazy costumes makes this seem like a live-action cartoon. Definitely a fun ride through jungles filled with carnivorous nymphs, machine-gun toting topless commandos, men changing race when they smoke marijuana, a piranha pool party and much much more! Well worth a look though you may need a friend versed in Brazilian history & culture to make sense of it all. The restored 2K print is absolutely gorgeous.