This Brazilian movie was supposed to be an epic drama. Oh my god, it was so boring that I almost went off to cut my hair or take a nap. Funny how the main character cut her hair off right after I grabbed my scissors!
Okay, initial reactions aside, the movie boasts beautiful cinematography, three generations of women. Strong woman characters are always a plus in my book. And I like dramas.
Unfortunately for me, these women aren’t strong, nor weak. They are the exactly the kind of characters that bore me to tears with self-defeating desires and actions. It doesn’t satisfy me to watch suffering that is seemingly purposeless because it portrays the main character Aurea living years of her life yearning to leave, but never does. Something always seems to interfere. I suppose that’s the point of the movie.
Is this a reflection of what life is? Are all our desires purposeless to some extent? What do we really have to say for ourselves about how we lived, at the end of our lives? For Aurea, only after she ends up staying in that sandy place she sought to leave the whole time, does she seem even remotely happy. It reminded me of “Krapp’s Last Tape” by Samuel Beckett. Krapp records every year on his birthday, a review of what’s happening that year. He plays records on a spools of tape from past years. His reactions mark his changing views of life and cleverly reveals what’s meaningful to him at three different stages of his life.
Perhaps it’s a comment on how to take life as we receive it, like “Krapp’s Last Tape” and like my blog on the “How Do You Like Your Eggs?”
But damn, I’m still so unsatisfied. The only conciliation I got was the consolation of “musica de verdade.”
