When Ana Carolina made "Das Tripas Coração" I accepted its bizarrice, absurdity and abstract settings. It was funny, crazy and out of this world, specially
in Brazilian films. But when I saw "Mar de Rosas" ("Sea of Roses") I was stunned and not in a good way because for a large portion of the film it all seem to
play like a regular average movie and then after half an hour has passed weird things begin to pop without any explanation which made this movie idiotic all the
halfway through. A movie to be avoided at all costs.
In it, Norma Bengell plays a disatisfied housewife with an annoying brat of a kid (Cristina Pereira) who tries to kill her husband (Hugo Carvana) after their
many arguements during a trip to Rio de Janeiro. When she thinks she escaped the situation of a mysterious Beetle follow her all the way down to São Paulo. As
its driver is the helpful Orlando Barde (Otávio Augusto), a man who works for her husband and he tries to take her back to authorities. But when she escapes him
and almost gets hit by a bus, the trio is rescued by a failed poet/dentist (Ary Fontoura) and wife (Miriam Muniz) and a setback of self analysis and weird moments
all happen with this strange quintet.
The level of absurdity in "Mar de Rosas" is beyond belief, specially concerning the teen character who goes on a rampage of sorts, going from making a truck
throw land and sand on the dentist's bathroom almost burying her mom or putting razor blades on a bar of soap so whoever uses it will bleed profusely. And to
think the film was almost going on a realistic and normal mode but when the trio meets the bizarre couple and they are stranded in that house things go all
downhill and a whole movie was wasted with no chance of redemption. At first, I thought this was going to a nice drama with feminist touches with Norma's
character being a very relatable character but then we only see the woman being humiliated to several degrees and her brat kid just doing one dumb act of
rebellion after another. I was in pain watching all of that. Sure, there are some good scenes but they're all in the first half hour or so, then it's a mess of a movie. As a surrealistic movie, this is painfully bad and Ana Carolina shouldn't make this movie at all. It just wasted celluloid for nothing.
Skip this without remorse. You'll thank me later on. 3/10.
