saturno3x1

Once upon a time there was a lazy director who always lost his morning bus and arrived so late at the filming sessions that they had to be filmed without him. I can't imagine any other reason why the acting is so soft and unconvincing. In fact, most of the actors/actresses could have been removed from the scenes, and you wouldn't have noticed almost any changes. Any of them stands out amongst the others (with some respectable exceptions as Angela Molina, who is quite under-used in the cast).

After seeing half of the picture (yes, you are correct: I won't stand the fully 140' runtime) I really can't say what is this movie about. Neither can say anything about the characters. I just remember a boring, boring, boring feeling during the past 1h10': There are just two or three different scenes, repeated and combined until you certainly know what's coming next. Music is exhaustingly dramatic and monotonic.

The good thing: The epoch costumes and the sets, which is not still enough reason to watch this movie.

I haven't seen any passion, power nor interest. And I don't care where the plot is going to the other half picture; It shall go without me.

This is in no way a commercial movie with the classical set-up of scenario, characters and scenes. It's just a documentary about Bebo Valdés traveling to San Salvador de Bahia in search of his ancestors' cultural inheritance. All the film long Bebo meets some people like Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and, of course, Carlinhos Brown and his friends and neighbors at Candeal in Bahia. Nice meetings between nice people.

The film is about the effort made by Carlinhos to teach the Candeal youngsters to play drums and dance, to help their district to get over the misery, and all over the background of afro music in Bahia.

I found some dialogs quite amusing, because you can see a Brazilian character speaking Portuguese to a Cuban character who replies in Spanish, and they get on very well!

I enjoyed also the musical performances of Carlinhos and Bebo, and also the Candeal band, who have a very strong sense of rhythm.

If you are interested in Brazilian music or Yoruba culture, I'd truly recommend this film to you.