A celebratory film about the Universidade Federal Fluminense during its 15th anniversary, this ineffective and dull documentary instead of making us
join the cause and support the college's achievements, it actually makes it a confusing, painful and awkward presentation of its students and there's no
message from it.
Mostly, what's shown in this wreck is a testimony from the dean of the place - the only coherent interview presented - and there's also views from some of
its students, all of which don't apepar in the video, we just hear their voices and that's what hurts the movie the most. Why? Besides the noisy and ugly
soundtrack that kicks in some parts, the young voices are all presented overlapped against each other whenever they're providing their views on the college
experience, the importance of the exact course of choice, or the criticism against the lack of liberty inside the institution (that part isn't necessarily
critical of the college but it is from the political system of that decade, which forbade teachers to be open about certain topics).
What did I learn from here? Nothing. Really nothing. There isn't any insghtful view from the dean or the students, nothing so eloquent or amazing about
the future of education - there seems to be some pessimism about what those people are actually doing there, and they were the future, my current present. I wonder
what happened to those students. In comparison to a similar themed film made on the same decade, there's one called "Princeton: A Search for Answers" which was
incredible in so many ways since we could watch classes, we could the see how part of the college experience works and we see young people who are inspired, feel
inspired and are more willing to learn and absorb everything they can - even though it almost feels like a propaganda from the place, but it's not. That was brilliantly
well-made and it even challenged audiences into thinking about the kind of experience one can have in such a renowned institution.
Now, the UFF project didn't
inspired a single thing on me except some reflection of a tough period to be a student because there was no liberty to discuss certain topics and teachers had
to follow plenty of orders so they wouldn't get fired or be considered subversive figures - I guess that's the main challenge of the film, in being made in such a
difficult time. If we'd only have a teacher talking about those issues... 3/10.
