La comédie de Dieu

The Portuguese film A Comédia de Deus was shown in the U.S. with the title, God's Comedy (1995). The movie was written and directed by João César Monteiro, who also stars in the film.

This movie carries a respectable IMDb rating of 7.2. When I see a rating this high for a film this bad, I ask myself, "Did they see the same movie I saw?"

Here's a film about about an older man who seduces young girls and maintains a pubic hair collection. He gives one young woman a milk bath, then strains the milk to collect the hair. The movie has been described as "an oddball sex comedy." Very oddball, not much comedy. Very sick.

Today I have bought "God's Comedy" on an imported DVD. Actually a very cheap DVD without Menu; spoken in Portuguese from Portugal (very difficult to be understood by a Brazilian); and subtitles in English that can not be removed.

I had great expectations with this movie, based on the IMDb User Rating of 7.2; the reference on the front cover of the DVD ("Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner"; and the name of the famous Portuguese director João César Monteiro, since I was curious to see a film of this director.

Unfortunately I found "A Comédia de Deus" overrated, dull and boring and I have stopped watching this film approximately at 70 minutes running time. As far as I saw, the plot is inexistent: João de Deus (Max Monteiro) is the manager of the ice-cream shop Paraíso dos Gelados (meaning Paradise of the frozen ones). He is very concerned with cleansing and demands that the girls wash their hands carefully to avoid a health problem. This pretentious film is so lame and boring that I was not able to see it until the end and I have skipped it. My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

If you like to see a strange old man messing around with innocent young girls - which are even working for him - you're right! And you'll also see a lot of strange "games" with food - befor and after having been eaten...I know i didn't understand the deeper sense of this movie, but it just was to strange for me...Don't!

This one is definitively a good film, a Portuguese one. João César Monteiro is provocative, hilarious and he is touching in some hounds of Portuguese society. This is not pop corn movie, it's not one and half hour of pure action. it's a film, it's Art, so therefore it's better to prepare yourself with some culture to understand it. This film has a lot of references to literature,movies and paintings.We can see on Joao de Deus a little bit of Nosferatu on the way he seduces the young girls, and his fetishes are in the books from Sade.There's bunch of great character beyond João de Deus. Judite a ex whore who runs a ice cream factory, the Butcher Father OF joaninha, Rosalinho and Joaninha of sweet eyes who seduces and gets seduced by João de DEUS. It's a disturbing movie which will make you laugh, annoy, irritate, think and in the end wish for more.

This is the man who irritated a whole country by making a film all in black. (Snow White)

Longer, more obvious and gratuitous than its predecessor, here the social criticism is not so present. João himself seems to be completely absorbed with all the lust, a total pervert to be honest, and the scenes with the butcher's young daughter (who came from nowhere) were dragged for way too long. I have no idea what's the symbolism behind the dance number and the crushed eggs... but damn, it was bizarre.