Behind the Sun (2001)
Brazilian badlands, April 1910. Tonho is ordered by his father to avenge the death of his older brother. The young man knows that if he commits this crime, his life will be divided in two: the twenty years he has already lived and the few days he has left to live, before the other family avenges their son's death. He is torn between fulfilling his ancestral duty and rebelling against it, urged by his younger brother Pacu. That's when a tiny travelling circus passes through the vast badlands where Tonho's family lives.
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The greatest movie ever!
Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Blistering performances.
a short story by a great Albanian writer. a precise script. and the film. as a slice of poem. it is so beauty as seed and flowers of this movie. the unique scenes. the performance of actors. the duty and revenge with Mediteranean flavor. the fiction, magic and reality as parts of same piece. the music, the looks, the sadness and the wind of joy. it is difficult to say - must see it ! because only applause is profound silence. a fragile vigorous film. about duty and freedom. about necessary sacrifice. and the last image as page of extraordinary gift. its basic virtue - it is a honest film. like a flavor from spring. like smoke of leaves in autumn evening. like frame of an adventure. in which every viewer becomes character.
This film's craftsmanship is praise-worthy. It is a testament to the filmmakers' talent to visually convey their message in a graceful fashion without having to put all the burden on the dialog, voice-overs, etc. I disagree with some of the posted comments that describe how "obvious" or "overt" the symbolism is. Film-making, after all, is a visual art more than anything else, and I feel that the visuals were presented in a balanced, hardly in-your-face manner. This is the first film that I see from Mr. Salles and now I look forward to see his other work like Central Station. This movie is a must-see and I feel fortunate, because I happened to come across it by chance, picking it because I've never before seen a Portugese-language film. April Despedacado is a delight to the eye and a story to behold. It reminds us why we love to go to the cinema!
From award winning director Walter Salles, who made both Motorcycle Diaries and Central Station, comes another fine film that again helps to put Brasil, a country almost the size of the whole of the USA, on the 'map' so to speak. This beautiful but desolate tale is set in Bahia where feuding families follow an 'honorable' eye for an eye code over their land. The men find their honour rests in an endless cycle of muted revenge, whilst the two main female characters, from a position of inferior authority, attempt to save the odd life. We see the farmers processing sugar cane, an arduous task, the scarcity in their lives, and the beautiful landscape that barely supports survival. The story is told from the point of view of a child whose parents haven't even bothered naming. Immaculate acting and beautiful direction makes the simple story constantly captivating - an absolute gem.
I rented this movie coz I liked Central Station so much, and coz lately I have stopped watching Hollywood movies and switched to foreign films. What an amazing film. I don't think I've seen one so intense for a very long time. Loved the 'kid', cried so much in the end my eyes are all puffy today. And oh, Rodrigo Santoro is a very promising actor. I've also seen Love Actually. I think he should be given more main roles than being others' sidekick.