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Sintonia (2019)
Excellent
When I started watching this show, I had a doubt as a preliminary feeling of where would the story line be headed to. But the events caught my attention very soon, and it turned out to be a surprising revelation.
Being from São Paulo, I can testify that this city is the land of opportunities, with countless possibilities. But a land where you have to fight your way toward the "American Dream", it will be not be delivered to you on a tray.
We follow three teenagers that choose distinct paths to reach their goals and ambitions, since going to college is not an available card on the table for them.
The way their situation evolves is extremely thrilling, and not really predictable, as we often wandered what was going to happen in the most challenging moments.
Trough shallow local dialogs, powerful messages are exchanged, and a simple mistake can be fatal, yet youth perseveres.
Of course people not familiar with Portuguese may loose part of the show, as slangs are hard to be translated from a language to another, but I believe it's definitely worth a try for people interested in learning what life can be in a city like São Paulo, with 12 millions inhabitants and hundreds of favelas.
A think the junior actors did a very good job, they all carry their personal form of charisma and values, often twisted by the circumstances an the context of their ongoing life.
The Last Thing He Wanted (2020)
Confusing, but I liked it
Seeing all those destroying reviews surprised me bit, although not totally. The Last Thing He Wanted is the kind of movie that you cannot watch unprepared. In fact the movie should have considered that all people did not read the original novel, and do not necessary know much about geopolitics.
I did not read the novel, and I admit I had a hard time trying to understand all the events and details as the story went on. It was clear, however, that the main character Elena was investigating sensitives affairs in central America, which represented a threat to important politicians in the US.
The profile of Elena is clearly the one of an extremely audacious woman, ready to risk her life for her cause. When she arrives in Nicaragua and things do not happen as planned, she chooses to stay in an extremely hostile place to dig deeper in the subject, instead of running back to her airplane back home, something anyone with a minimum sense of survival instinct would have done. (Personally I wouldn't even have entered the plane to begin with, but yes I'm a coward).
Then all the atmosphere of mess, chaos and paranoia is actually thrilling, imo. The fact that we do not know exactly where she is and who are the friends and who are the enemies translates what the main character probably felt. Anyone is potentially an enemy willing to kill you. I was curious to see how would or how could she get out of such a degenerated situation. Well she didn't.
The story makes you wonder, in fact, why did she go on that trip, and why did she stay, if it was for the money, for the cause, or for both. I would guess for both.
The movie failed to keep the audience connected due to a complete lack of clear illustration and explanation of the context, I was extremely frustrated not being able to fully understand who were some character, and what was exactly happening in some scenes.
But I think the story caught my attention, and I think I learned a couple of new things about some events that were going one in the Reagan era, involving politics and interests concerning Central America.