Les cannibales

When this film was screened at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Festival's Director spoke, practically begging the audience to "stay for the last 15 minutes. It will be worth it." In fact, the entire film is "worth it." From start to finish, it is an honest and well-crafted surrealist film, indeed in the tradition of Bunuel. It's tone and assault on bourgeois society is reminiscent of "The Exterminating Angel". But while "Angel" gets bleaker and bleaker as it progresses, "Os Canibais" becomes funnier and funnier, until, in the last reel, it explodes in a frenzy of absurdism that would make a devout Dadaist giggle.

Should it ever resurface, British and American viewers will easily understand that "Os Canibais" is a film 20 years ahead of its time. It is not the Thatcher/Reagan pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps world that "Os Canibais" is lampooning, but the obscene world of the New Rich as personified by those who shop for shoes while one of the world's great cities drowns.