katyara

So, I've read a bunch of reviews complaining 'this is not ST'.

Well, let's see: there's a black woman in the chain of command infuriating conservatives and so; diplomacy; pacifism ideals; witty dialogues; time travel experiences; a captain who does not shoot first; acceptance and liberty; well, the list keeps on.

Maybe the difficulty in accepting those 'new directions' (are you sure?) for Star Trek: Discovery lies in you and your prejudices, not in the show. ST has always been about it: fighting conservatism and reactionaryism. The hate over Burnham (Sonequa) smells and tastes like (what the hell, why not call it by the name?) racism. Structural racism.

The show was never a problem. Not really. (Btw: don't like it? Don't watch it. Nobody cares.)

'Amarelo' means yellow in Portuguese. But AmarElo - a pun on the words 'love' (amar), 'yellow' and 'link' (elo), as if to say that love is the bond that ties us up - is one of the most important albums in recent Brazilian discography. Giving birth to the idea of a 'neo-samba', the album-that-became-an-essential-doc fuses styles and tells the story (tells the history) of the foundation (and oppression) of black culture in Brazil. Emicida - an unparalleled artist, a genius - roams through the samba-capoeira-candomblé universe to find out who we are and what we have become (cultural and politically) - and to root his album and his origins. It's undoubtedly one of the most important movies of the decade, 'cause it rewrites what Brazilian elites have always tried to erase: that we are a country built on black blood; that we are a country that has appropriated black culture for years; that we are a country that has silenced black artists, black philosophers, black writers for centuries. But not anymore. Emicida has come to put an end to this. It's a movie about respect. It's a movie about visibility. It's a movie about reconstruction. But it's definitely a movie about love. Above all - love for those who came before us; love for the gods from Yorubá culture; love for our ancestors. It's all about what we may become if we fight this fight as one. Linked. In (through) love.

There are two stories here: the first one is about this young couple, learning to live together, sharing their new apartment and so: it's a story of light and tenderness. The second one, nonetheless, reveals a dense conflict of a couple facing a harsh but already predictable break up: the new perspectives they have to deal with, the new individualities, the new self: it's a story of sorrow and shadows. But these are neither idealistical nor cruel narratives: mainly, they are complementaries, part of a daily struggle of any couple. And that's where Joana Mariani, the director of the movie, narrows it: she's always looking forward to share both stories as one, tangling them up through songs that are actually part of the story she wants to tell us.

It's an emotional journey that surpasses our own egos and helps us licking our wounds.