Based on an acclaimed play by José Vicente, "No Beco da Noite" ("On a Night Alley") is a messy, loud and confusing piece on two bank workers trapped into a
series of situations brought up by one of them. Two discontent lost souls who are disatisfied with the lives they lead but one of them has made the final decision of
robbing the place he works and he desperatly wants to convince the other one to be part of the act. We have a manager (Rubens Correa) who keeps pushing many ideas onto
the mind of the night cleaning working man (Ivan de Albuquerque) either for just having some small talk about their work life at the bank, have some cigarette since
no one's there to watch them and make some life comparisons.
While the idea has many interesting ingredients to keep audiences in suspense and also having some deep questionings on both characters and the differences and
similarities between them, the movie ends up being a complete mess on several accounts, turning itself into a pretentious work that tries to be intelligent and
critical on social themes. It fails with almost everything it tries to accomplish.
I can't tell about the play since I haven't seen it performed neither read it (but I'm curious), but what's shown in this film written and directed by Walter
Lima Jr. Is a quite redundant and poorly written film with some interesting dialogues. Most of the plot revolving the two men goes on and on with a repetition
of schemes and ideas, it takes an awful lot of time to get where it needs (despite being just an hour long film); and at no moment I was convinced by the bank
white collar man's manners and talks as being engaing to the simple working man. He keeps using of his apparent superiority to prove to the man that they're both
being robbed by their contrator and they need to take advantage of the moment and get what they need, and he does in such an aggressive manner that one keeps
wondering why the poor guy simply couldn't find a way to get away from the place and call the cops. Much of the angry rants from the bossy guy are quite reasonable
but his ways of argument to other guy are very dull and never engaging.
And the experience of watching the whole thing is a painful one to watch. Ugly looking, with a terrible sound where the characters need to keep on shouting
almost all times and with an even more intrusive loud score by Gato Barbieri and two others (but I blame him because of his loud sax in the early minutes of the
film. I'm yet a more far more disastrous combination of out of pitch notes on a soundtrack). Correa and Albuquerque make a nice acting pairing, two talented
veteran characters playing the leads were a fine combination but it's a pity that the construction of everything was so poor and lacking in substance that one cannot
fully enjoy the film.
It doesn't convince us as a fiction thanks to some random elements shown outside of the bank - which includes a 5-second cameo by Anecy Rocha and some
police sirens popping here and there that makes us wonder how could they possibly know about the bank robbery; neither can convince for its real issues of talking
about the different class struggle, the hard work that never gets compensanted which alienates the man from society due to long hours of dedication resulting little
pay. Had I'd been the writer of such adaptation I'd devote an extra half-hour to compose background characters to both of them so there'd also be some justification
to what they do or don't, or at least to make us care for them. But nope, leaving as a duel of performances in a claustrophobic film Mr. Lima just made a tedious
experience that fails to engage or connect with audiences. 3/10.
