BMW Vermelho

Red BMW is the worse movie from the Miami Brazilian Film Festival, it isn't funny. It's a trash! At one moment when there's the leading actress holding a baby, and you notice that the baby is a doll is horrible. This movie sucks!!! The only thing that doesn't stincks on this short movie is the leading actor. Direction horrible, extras horrible, it sucks, it sucks and it sucks. Don't see even if it's playing for free. 0 out of 10.

A family living in a shanty town in Brazil find they have won first prize in the New Year's lottery of the local paper – a red BMW. However they are contractually not allowed to sell or rent it for two years. Unable to drive it and unable to pay for taxes and petrol the car is nothing more than an attraction and they begin to use it as a better shelter than their home.

Seems a comical story at first, but it doesn't manage to be laugh out loud funny – instead it raises the odd smile but not more than that. The problem was, I didn't know if it was meant to be a comedy or not. The main performances say `playing it for laughs' but the delivery isn't good enough for that. Which left me wondering if it had a point.

The underlying point is about the nature of `help' for people living in shanty towns with little hope of leaving them. Here the BMW is potentially worth lots, but it is an asset that they aren't trained to use nor can they afford to use it. Instead of being a car, it is ill-used and becomes their home – i.e. the potentially valuable gift is not realised because it is in a unsuitable form. This is a strong point – however it is only ever hinted at here and never carried to the fore. This made me feel like it had missed it's opportunity – or maybe the director didn't know what the writer had in mind?

The cast are good – but I got the feeling that the director had told them they were in a much funnier film. Hence they mug a bit and play it for laughs when there aren't any. However the film looks professional and very colourful and bright – it just a shame that there isn't the content to compliment it.

Overall this has promise but it fails to deliver. It is vaguely funny but it could have had a real dark wit and made a good social point. It isn't rubbish – but you can't help feeling that this blew it's potential and feel disappointed.

I saw this movie by accident, it was on the monitor as background filler in an airport frequent flier lounge in Sao Paulo. I wasn't very impressed with the technical aspects of the short, but I got to thinking about what the maker was trying to get across, the message. I think the movie has several messages, some very obvious and insultingly simplistic, and some a bit deeper. This short is a good analogy to what is occurring, and has been occurring in the Brazilian countryside for years. It has more to do with the "land reform" movement than anything else. The short uses urban poverty to explain rural politics. The red BMW represents the land that is being handed out to "the landless" (sem terra) in Brazil. Without agricultural loans, subsidies, tractors, the land is about as useful as a BMW to a favela dweler. Like the BMW, the landless peasant will only be able to use the land to meet an immediate need, and not the true potential of the "prize".

That's my take on it, FWIW.