This student film sort of presents a hyper-link film with a small group of characters whose lives are about to get changed due to some force majeure.
The cinema of Altman, Iñarritú, P. T. Anderson and so many other filmmakers out there, there's nothing new in here but somehow the makers of it actually made
something worth seeing, gripping in some sense and with some valid twists though heavily cliched.
It all starts with a teenage boy (João Valadares) who is woken up by his mother (Diva Carvalhar) who discovered he got back to his drug habits and she kicks
him out of home. Cut to the outside where he's waiting for his father to arrive, he decides to walk and try to score his next fix but he doesn't have any
money so he looks for a potential victim, a lonely old man (José Bueno) sitting in a bar. Not gonna tell what happens between them but the film goes back
to present the old time routine previous to the bar. And then there's a rough cop giving a hard time on two kids smoking weed. And somehow they're all gonna
find some form of connection which will change their lives.
"Vazio" ("Empty") doesn't tell anything new under the sun but one can sense a certain urgency from the filmmakers in wanting to tell such story that
talks about family dissolution, addiction, loneliness and how people are too detached from each other to actually give a damn about the other person. Forget
about the more composed younger characters and let's focus on the senior citizen. His moments of solitude are a mystery to me but I can identify with him. He
wakes from a drunken hour, goes to drink a little and starts reflecting on something. Then he gets dressed and goes out. First person he meets is the
building's doorman of whom he greets, the very first time doing so. Then he goes to the bar. For quite a moment I kept thinking about who he was, his past,
why is he single or widowed or why isn't going to a single's ball, that kind of thing. Yet I found some happiness inside of him, deep down this man has
everything he needs in order to live his life. Maybe he's just too a couple of drinks away to get the desired bliss. Oh I wonder...
Well, I liked the mystery of it all, the shock of realities and situations all going opposite each other and I knew beforehand nothing would work out
fine. There's a nice scenario development, but a word of warning: the acting is atrociously bad, one of the worst I've ever seen and that can be a turn off
right in the first minutes - the dialogue between mother and son simply does not work, mostly because of the way they say those lines. The cop was the best
in the show, and the old man is relatively good. But for the most part I couldn't stand the acting, it's very lousy. But the movie didn't failed to impress me
a bit. There were some nice presentation of elements and it feels a realistic situation. 6/10.
