Film review" 'Bossa Nova'
In "Bossa Nova", director Bruno Barreto serves up a dreamy Rio de Janeiro that pulsates to the beat of Antonio Carlos Jobim bossa nova classics, a Rio of midnight swims and intimate strolls along Copacabana beach, where romance lingers in the humid night air.
It's the Rio of travel agents' dreams rather than the urban nightmare Barreto portrayed in his frightening 1978 crime melodrama "Amor Bandido". While this Rio may intrigue romantically inclined adults, even they may feel cheated by lightweight fare that is more a tempting Brazilian hors d'oeuvres than a satisfying dinner by candlelight. Sony Classics should anticipate no more than modest returns in urban markets.
Although an ensemble piece, the film very much stars Barreto's wife, American actress Amy Irving. Playing an English teacher who stays on in Rio following the death of her Brazilian husband, she remains aloof from this tropical pleasure zone. Like a flower placed between the pages of a book for years, Irving's Mary Ann Simpson looks beautifully preserved but dead to her surroundings.
Barreto and writers Alexandre Machado and Fernanda Young, working from Sergio Sant'Anna's novel "Miss Simpson", place Mary Ann amid a whirligig of comic misunderstandings and near-farcical romantic pursuits that mostly feel forced and mechanical.
The paths of nine characters crisscross Mary Ann,'s with attorney Pedro Paulo (veteran actor Antonio Fagundes) at the focal point. Pedro's wife (Debora Bloch) has left him for her tai chi teacher (Kazuo Matsui). Mary Ann teaches English in the same building that houses the tailor shop of Paulo's father (Alberto de Mendoza).
One of Mary Ann's students (Drica Moraes) has fallen in love, sight unseen, with a New Yorker with whom she trades lies about lifestyle and physical attributes via the Internet. Another student, a soccer star (Alexandre Borges), must brush up on his English upon his move to a British club. Then Pedro's half-brother (Pedro Cardoso) falls for Pedro's legal intern (Giovanna Antonelli), who in turn develops a thing for the soccer star. Everything comes to a head with the arrival of the Internet lover (Stephen Tobolowsky).
The film's reliance on perfectly timed entrances and exits and fortuitous coincidences at times gives "Bossa Nova" a contrived feeling. Barreto manages the multiple plots and love affairs well, and the film is not without its moments of subtle charm and amiable comedy. The music -- both Jobim's and original work by Eumir Deodato -- and Pascal Rabaud's postcard-perfect cinematography establish the romance of this mythical Rio even if the viewer doesn't always buy into the romantic trysts.
The mood is playful, but the characters lie very near the surface. And the attempt to mingle laughter with tears never comes off. The most egregious stumble comes when Barreto brings all of the characters together for a climax at a hospital, where Pedro's father lies dying of a heart attack.
And Irving's feminine enigma floats through the movie in a way that Brazilians may find seductive and exotic. But to American viewers, she may seem like an emotional zombie.
BOSSA NOVA
Sony Pictures Classics
LC Barreto & Filmes do Equador
in association with Globo Filmes
Producers: Lucy Barreto, Luiz Carlos Barreto
Director: Bruno Barreto
Screenwriters: Alexandre Machado,
Fernanda Young
Based on a novel by: Sergio Sant'Anna
Executive producer: Bruno Barreto
Director of photography: Pascal Rabaud
Production designers: Cassio Amarante,
Carla Caffe
Music: Eumir Deodato
Costume designer: Emilia Duncan
Editor: Ray Hubley
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mary Ann: Amy Irving
Pedro Paulo: Antonio Fagundes
Acacio: Alexandre Borges
Tania: Debora Bloch
Nadine: Drica Moraes
Sharon: Giovanna Antonelli
Trevor: Stephen Tobolowsky
Roberto: Pedro Cardoso
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
It's the Rio of travel agents' dreams rather than the urban nightmare Barreto portrayed in his frightening 1978 crime melodrama "Amor Bandido". While this Rio may intrigue romantically inclined adults, even they may feel cheated by lightweight fare that is more a tempting Brazilian hors d'oeuvres than a satisfying dinner by candlelight. Sony Classics should anticipate no more than modest returns in urban markets.
Although an ensemble piece, the film very much stars Barreto's wife, American actress Amy Irving. Playing an English teacher who stays on in Rio following the death of her Brazilian husband, she remains aloof from this tropical pleasure zone. Like a flower placed between the pages of a book for years, Irving's Mary Ann Simpson looks beautifully preserved but dead to her surroundings.
Barreto and writers Alexandre Machado and Fernanda Young, working from Sergio Sant'Anna's novel "Miss Simpson", place Mary Ann amid a whirligig of comic misunderstandings and near-farcical romantic pursuits that mostly feel forced and mechanical.
The paths of nine characters crisscross Mary Ann,'s with attorney Pedro Paulo (veteran actor Antonio Fagundes) at the focal point. Pedro's wife (Debora Bloch) has left him for her tai chi teacher (Kazuo Matsui). Mary Ann teaches English in the same building that houses the tailor shop of Paulo's father (Alberto de Mendoza).
One of Mary Ann's students (Drica Moraes) has fallen in love, sight unseen, with a New Yorker with whom she trades lies about lifestyle and physical attributes via the Internet. Another student, a soccer star (Alexandre Borges), must brush up on his English upon his move to a British club. Then Pedro's half-brother (Pedro Cardoso) falls for Pedro's legal intern (Giovanna Antonelli), who in turn develops a thing for the soccer star. Everything comes to a head with the arrival of the Internet lover (Stephen Tobolowsky).
The film's reliance on perfectly timed entrances and exits and fortuitous coincidences at times gives "Bossa Nova" a contrived feeling. Barreto manages the multiple plots and love affairs well, and the film is not without its moments of subtle charm and amiable comedy. The music -- both Jobim's and original work by Eumir Deodato -- and Pascal Rabaud's postcard-perfect cinematography establish the romance of this mythical Rio even if the viewer doesn't always buy into the romantic trysts.
The mood is playful, but the characters lie very near the surface. And the attempt to mingle laughter with tears never comes off. The most egregious stumble comes when Barreto brings all of the characters together for a climax at a hospital, where Pedro's father lies dying of a heart attack.
And Irving's feminine enigma floats through the movie in a way that Brazilians may find seductive and exotic. But to American viewers, she may seem like an emotional zombie.
BOSSA NOVA
Sony Pictures Classics
LC Barreto & Filmes do Equador
in association with Globo Filmes
Producers: Lucy Barreto, Luiz Carlos Barreto
Director: Bruno Barreto
Screenwriters: Alexandre Machado,
Fernanda Young
Based on a novel by: Sergio Sant'Anna
Executive producer: Bruno Barreto
Director of photography: Pascal Rabaud
Production designers: Cassio Amarante,
Carla Caffe
Music: Eumir Deodato
Costume designer: Emilia Duncan
Editor: Ray Hubley
Color/stereo
Cast:
Mary Ann: Amy Irving
Pedro Paulo: Antonio Fagundes
Acacio: Alexandre Borges
Tania: Debora Bloch
Nadine: Drica Moraes
Sharon: Giovanna Antonelli
Trevor: Stephen Tobolowsky
Roberto: Pedro Cardoso
Running time -- 95 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 5/1/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Central Station'
A deserved hit with film festival audiences, "Central Station" takes potentially predictable subject matter -- a lonely older woman and a young boy, who has just lost his mother, search for the father he never knew -- and infuses it with a jolt of bracing originality and quiet power.
Yes, the reluctant odd couple will ultimately form a bond in spite of themselves. Yes, each will ultimately have a profound influence on the other. But impressive filmmaker Walter Salles ("Foreign Land"), working from an original concept richly fleshed out by first-time screenwriters Joao Emanuel Carneiro and Marcos Bernstein, displays both a visual virtuosity and a tremendous rapport with his two remarkable leads.
Destined to be nominated for the foreign-language film Oscar, the Arthur Cohn production could also generate considerable traffic beyond the usual art house destinations.
Respected Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro puts in a masterful, fearless performance as the world-weary Dora, a lonely, cynical, far-from-pleasant former schoolteacher who meets rent for her depressing little flat by writing letters dictated by commuters who pass through Rio de Janeiro's Central Station.
But rather than mailing those letters, Dora takes them home and has fun reading them to her neighbor, Irene (Marilia Pera), before either ripping them up or stuffing them into a drawer.
Nice person.
One of those would-be correspondents -- a woman with a 9-year-old boy who just dictated a note to her son's long-absent father -- is killed by a bus, leaving the child, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) to fend for himself in the busy terminal.
Ultimately, after a couple of bad starts (at one juncture Dora "sells" Josue to a shady adoption racket, using some of her cash to buy a new remote-control TV), the stubborn twosome hit the road in search of the Josue's dad, with Dora ending up finding some long-lost feelings along the way.
Montenegro, who won the Silver Bear for best actress at this year's Berlin Film Festival for her warts-and-all performance, never stoops to caricature in her portrayal of a hardened woman who spent a good chunk of her adult life in self-imposed emotional exile.
Equally impressive is her traveling companion, de Oliveira, a former Rio airport shoeshine boy who never acted prior to his demanding, extraordinarily focused and moving work here.
Not only does Salles coax greatness from his leads, he also directs with a stirring visual sense. Working in tandem with director of photography Walter Carvalho, Salles deftly choreographs sequence after sequence -- Josue attempting to run after a departing train, Dora looking for Josue in the midst of a massive, candle-lit religious service -- that vividly underscore the film's themes of alienation and misplaced identity.
CENTRAL STATION
Sony Pictures Classics
An Arthur Cohn production
A film by Walter Salles
Director: Walter Salles
Producers: Arthur Cohn, Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre
Executive producers: Elisa Tolomelli, Lillian Birnbaum, Donald Ranvaud
Screenwriters: Joao Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein
Based on an original idea by Walter Salles
Director of photography: Walter Carvalho
Production designers: Cassio Amarante, Carla Caffe
Editors: Isabelle Rathery, Felipe Lacerda
Costume designer: Cristina Camargo
Music: Antonio Pinto, Jaques Morelembaum
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dora: Fernanda Montenegro
Irene: Marilia Pera
Josue: Vinicius de Oliveira
Ana: Soia Lira
Cesar: Othon Bastos
Pedrao: Otavio Augusto
Isaias: Matheus Nachtergaele
Moises: Caio Junqueira
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Yes, the reluctant odd couple will ultimately form a bond in spite of themselves. Yes, each will ultimately have a profound influence on the other. But impressive filmmaker Walter Salles ("Foreign Land"), working from an original concept richly fleshed out by first-time screenwriters Joao Emanuel Carneiro and Marcos Bernstein, displays both a visual virtuosity and a tremendous rapport with his two remarkable leads.
Destined to be nominated for the foreign-language film Oscar, the Arthur Cohn production could also generate considerable traffic beyond the usual art house destinations.
Respected Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro puts in a masterful, fearless performance as the world-weary Dora, a lonely, cynical, far-from-pleasant former schoolteacher who meets rent for her depressing little flat by writing letters dictated by commuters who pass through Rio de Janeiro's Central Station.
But rather than mailing those letters, Dora takes them home and has fun reading them to her neighbor, Irene (Marilia Pera), before either ripping them up or stuffing them into a drawer.
Nice person.
One of those would-be correspondents -- a woman with a 9-year-old boy who just dictated a note to her son's long-absent father -- is killed by a bus, leaving the child, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira) to fend for himself in the busy terminal.
Ultimately, after a couple of bad starts (at one juncture Dora "sells" Josue to a shady adoption racket, using some of her cash to buy a new remote-control TV), the stubborn twosome hit the road in search of the Josue's dad, with Dora ending up finding some long-lost feelings along the way.
Montenegro, who won the Silver Bear for best actress at this year's Berlin Film Festival for her warts-and-all performance, never stoops to caricature in her portrayal of a hardened woman who spent a good chunk of her adult life in self-imposed emotional exile.
Equally impressive is her traveling companion, de Oliveira, a former Rio airport shoeshine boy who never acted prior to his demanding, extraordinarily focused and moving work here.
Not only does Salles coax greatness from his leads, he also directs with a stirring visual sense. Working in tandem with director of photography Walter Carvalho, Salles deftly choreographs sequence after sequence -- Josue attempting to run after a departing train, Dora looking for Josue in the midst of a massive, candle-lit religious service -- that vividly underscore the film's themes of alienation and misplaced identity.
CENTRAL STATION
Sony Pictures Classics
An Arthur Cohn production
A film by Walter Salles
Director: Walter Salles
Producers: Arthur Cohn, Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre
Executive producers: Elisa Tolomelli, Lillian Birnbaum, Donald Ranvaud
Screenwriters: Joao Emanuel Carneiro, Marcos Bernstein
Based on an original idea by Walter Salles
Director of photography: Walter Carvalho
Production designers: Cassio Amarante, Carla Caffe
Editors: Isabelle Rathery, Felipe Lacerda
Costume designer: Cristina Camargo
Music: Antonio Pinto, Jaques Morelembaum
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dora: Fernanda Montenegro
Irene: Marilia Pera
Josue: Vinicius de Oliveira
Ana: Soia Lira
Cesar: Othon Bastos
Pedrao: Otavio Augusto
Isaias: Matheus Nachtergaele
Moises: Caio Junqueira
Running time -- 115 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 11/18/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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