O Palhaço

This is a dramatic masterpiece with beautiful photography, innocent and slight humor, huge symbolism in between the details and a great plot.

The ambiance: Brazil's rural areas in the late '80s(?) show a decadence which is perfect for the simplicity which is willing to be transmitted. A search for the essential, for the true vocation, down to the most innocent and oniric will of a human being.

Please, don't be shallow to call it "boring", it's not. It's not boring to value the most simple, slight and innocent feelings in instead of big mourning drama or breathtaking hilariousness. You just have to let out your concerns and allow yourself to be involved by the plot like a child. And then, you'll be surprised by having a huge contemplative smile while a small teardrop falls at the corner of your eyes.

Very bad the film "O PALHAÇO" (The Clown), directed and played by Senton Mello. I pity for the children that I saw many mothers taking to watch this annoying movie, thinking it would supply the lack of a actual circus nowadays in Brazilian big cities. The story tells about a depressed clown,but the cheating advertising from Imagem Filmes hides that. It is a boring movie, depressing, irritating, long-winded, tedious, filled with many unnecessary sequences, as well as with dead times and jokes with no fun at all. The few jokes are about farts and low humorous things like that. I was compelled several times to leave the session in the middle, and it was a relief to realize that it was not a very long movie.

I've saw the movie "O Palhaço" and my expectation about the movie was positive, because they really show the beginning of the circus, and was just like this. If you compare with a modern circle, you won't like the movie, because they are in another reality.

Between the old circus and the circus of nowadays the clown will always be the celebrity.

About director, actors, everyone did a great job, same as the soundtrack who gives to the movie the truth perspective, by the way the soundtrack is amazing.

So, I recommend this movie.

Sorry Selton, but obviously you're no Charlie Chaplin, neither as an actor nor as a director. You need to learn the difference between "naive" and "simplistic". It was a fatal mistake to decide to utilize the creative cop-out of a narrator, who rather than commenting, only describes, and here sounds as if he's reading from subtitles for the visually impaired: he says "the people wait", and we see people waiting; he says "the little girl smiles", and we see the little girl smiling This becomes very tiresome very quickly. The pandering to each local mayor is amusing, the photography is well-done, and the music track appropriate. But all in all, it's very easy to understand why this movie didn't make the Academy's short list.

It's a short movie, but it's wonderful. There's nothing new in it, but it makes us to remember how simple life used to be. We can see in this movie the purity of Carlitos in the main character, and how circus was important in people lives before television. It brings back some old actors who haven't seen for long as Ferrugem, Jose Loureiro, Paulo José and Moacir Franco. It's a movie that you can see with all family, there are no obscenities. It's a comedy, but you almost cry in some parts with the beauty of the plot. I must say this is the best Brazilian movie of the year and Selton Melo is becoming not only a good actor, but also a good director.