Ilha das Flores

Very seldom is one given the opportunity to watch a documentary like Ilha das Flores. It is less a TV product than an essay not written but filmed, and well filmed indeed. The ideas displayed throughout barely quarter an hour are so many and so profound that you might need more than one view to assimilate them all; but the script is so agile that you will never grow bored. Instead, even if you are not in the mood for documentaries at the beginning, will find yourself deeply interested in this humble production within minutes, if not seconds. But remember, you are not dealing with an entertainment product but with one of the best lessons of ethics you might come across ever. Anyway, that you will realize for sure at the end of the film, when its ideas, lingering in your head, will keep you pensive for long.

This short is a fine example of people with something crucial to say, having to bend to commercial whims of entertainment in order to hold the audience's attention span long enough to get the message across. It is remarkably witty, and runs at a fanatical pace. The jokes cause a smile, but when the holocaust clips arise, we get the clue that there are weighty matters at stake here. People need to see films like this. Remarkably effective.

Saw this documentary short subject in my World Society course at UC Santa Cruz. It's about capitalism, told through the story of a tomato. But, thinking back on it, it was much more than just that tomato, that went into the making of the family's dinner, which was bought with money, which was acquired through the mother's perfume sales, which is an alcohol-based topical fragrance oil. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, this is how the film is paced. It is the very reason the word "Tangential" was created. Furtado is so crafty at taking you to places you never think you'll go; from painfully hilarious irony (the monty python-esque first 5 minutes), to head-battering shock (the history of "the second");just by mentioning a single word, you could travel from a dollar bill to a pile of emaciated bodies, within a matter of seconds. And none of the connections are far-fetched. His story is based on the theory of six degrees of separation, and how he arrives at those final, latent images of haunting truth is a trip that must be taken.

I was recently compiling a list of my favorite movies of 2000, and the best films I saw were the reissues of "The Exorcist" and "Blood Simple", and this, a 15 minute documentary about capitalism. Very weird, but it is true. If I ever get the chance to see this again, I will relish every second of it as if it were the first time. And if you are a student, you should check your campus library for "Ilha das flores", because it is amazing.

That's the kind of movie you'll see quite by chance, one evening on television. And you will never forget it.

"Ilha das flores" is the story of a tomato, from the field where it is cultivated to the dustbin, and beyond. It's fun, and, at the same time, it tells you a lot about the economy and the Brazilian society. What is really unique for a documentary is that the story is as pleasant to follow as in a fiction, and the end is one of the more stunning and moving end I have ever seen in a movie.

The ironic, heartbreaking and acid "saga" of a spoiled tomato: from the plantation of a "Nisei" (Brazilian with Japanese origins); to a supermarket; to a consumer's kitchen to become sauce of a pork meat; to the garbage can since it is spoiled for the consumption; to a garbage truck to be dumped in a garbage dump in "Ilha das Flores"; to the selection of nutriment for pigs by the employees of a pigs breeder; to become food for poor Brazilian people.

Today I have had the chance to see "Ilha das Flores", one of the first works of Jorge Furtado, one of or maybe my favorite Brazilian director in the present days. With a perfect logic, and a pace of video clip, Jorge Furtado exposes the wild Brazilian capitalism, where there are two countries: for those that can afford, and for the millions of miserable that are below a pig in the hierarchy of disputing garbage. This documentary is a devastating and overwhelming social critic to our modern society and may be seen as a funny satire by foreigners, but unfortunately reflects the sad reality of my country. Mandatory masterpiece! My vote is ten.

Title (Brazil): "Ilha das Flores" ("Isle of Flowers")