Cat's Cradle

In São Paulo, the upper middle class teenagers Cristiano, Chico and Gabriel have just joined the university and on the eve of the opening class, they go to a party with drugs and booze. On the next day, after their classes, the date of Cristiano in the previous night comes to his house and the three friends rape the girl. The girl dies, they panic and decide to get rid off the body, but Cristiano's mother arrives, startles with Gabriel and rolls the staircase, breaking her neck. The trio decides to dump and burn the corpses in a garbage landfill, but along the night other tragedies happen.

The polemic and shameful "Cama de Gato" is an overrated pretentious crap about alienation of the youth, and is certainly the worst Brazilian movie that I have seen along many years. The shallow, tragic and dark story is actually a black humor comedy of bad taste. The screenplay is not funny, with stupid lines and dialogs, and boring, manipulative and silly footages with interviews with morons teenagers in the beginning and in the end. The acting is terrible, apparently with many improvisations, but no talent, and I was disappointed with presence of the promising Caio Blat in this trash. The camera, framing, cinematography and edition are amateurish and of very low quality. The sound is awful and in many parts it is impossible to understand what the actors and actresses are speaking (probably it is a plus, since this flick sucks). The gang bang is very realistic and used to promote this mediocre movie in a very poor marketing of sex-exploitation. My vote is one (awful).

Title (Brazil): "Cama de Gato" ("Bed of the Cat")

Cama de Gato (2002), is a proper shoestring indie movie set in Sao Paulo. First time (film) writer-director Alexandre Stockler created a script by exaggerating a number of real life events which occurred in Sao Paulo into a complex moral dilemma for three upper-middle class teens, which plays out over a number of hours on one evening. Though some of the cinematic effects are questionable and does not contribute to the atmosphere, storyline or artistic effect, the different subjective flashbacks which each teen had of the event which led to the start of the moral dilemma worked pretty well. As such the core story and the nihilistic message is conveyed powerfully. The impact of the class differential on the morality of actions is fortunately only touched upon lightly (though in act 1 it appeared as a principal theme to be explored). Stockler's T. R. A. U. M. A '99 manifesto (basically an ironic response to Von Tier & Kie' s Dogme 95 manifesto) is mostly likely the driving force behind the overpaying of class disparacy in a somewhat disjointed manner. This is said as the teens react in a manner in which teens likely could act when met with such events, ie try to get rid of the evidence and hope the entire mess goes away. True to the title, the film is a cats cradle (made through the currency of the film). Directing and scripting was exceptional, especially on an estimated budget of $ 5000. The use of certain music worked okay to convey a satirical effect to the horror of the events but it also had a bit of a slapstick feel. Cinematography was decent enough, even if regard is not had to the limited budget. As with all low budget indie movies, the acting was a mixed bag of really good and really pretty bad. Overall despite many shortcomings , the film worked really well. 7/10.

This middle-class denoucement farce is a dangerous movie that falls into the entrapment category. It is about terrible, vile and sickening things - as life is sometimes - and it is presented in such a format of those objectionable things it's difficult to understand where the criticism begins or a possible plausible for it to exist. Alexandre Boury's film is said to be composed in the same way as the Dogma manifesto though interpreted on a Brazilian way of settings and schemes - hence why the below B film kind of cinematographic style. It's too pretentious to be that since the quality standards of almost everything, from editing to acting and story fails spectacularly bad despite good thrillings, a frightening humor that isn't there and the pretension of making a powerfully shocking statement about a class of degenerates. Yet the movie proves its point by presenting real interviews with non-viewers of the film who are the possible threat to society.

It can't be said that "Cama de Gato" is totally flawed because the director created a perfect rollercoaster of emotions and thrills for the characters, you're glued to the screen and wanna know how it all ends. I shall wash, but I shan't be cleaned and I never thought a film could make me feel so bad when the credits rolled (and you have to see it up until the very last minute). This "Very Bad Things" (1998) experience revolves a trio of young clueless teens highly opinionated about their own reality who are confronted with a serious of troubles and crimes simply because they wanted to have fun. Rape, murder, accidental deaths, total disregard for ethics and the lives of others is what comes to them. It's all brutal, shocking and unappealing (but violence finds its way to entertain viewers out there, despite things being played out sickening, dumb and ridiculous as if it's wanting for exciting laughs from a dark humored comedy). To be fair, the only laugh the film gets is thanks to its amazing amateur quality with everything presented; but with such strong themes of violence and social alienation the film gets too dark to be seen in a light way. It's not funny, neither satirical.

Early 2000's and the whole talk about the internet visibility and mass appeal is slightly ahead of time (those are the most curious scenes from the opening bits since it's a weird journey to the past days of the web, so awkward for those who lived it. A time before the accessive social platforms of today). It's in this context of affortunate yet bored teens the film gets its idea of a youth that celebrates wrongdoings because the system is all wrong to them; a generation entitled to everything except dealing with consequences and duties. It's all about drugs, drinks, parties and non-consexual activity we see with the characters, and from real opinions given by that parcel of society. So, the film is a thesis about a reality, it's real up to a certain extent.

I understand the bad reputation it gets though I'm not all favorable to it. "Cama de Gato" is an experience to be felt, the director tries, succeeds and fails with such an intensity that it's easy to get confused about everything. The pace is excellent but the story fails to deliver credibility or sense of a total realism since it forces everything down the viewers throat. While the actors fully undress on scene; the soundtrack coming from the moment and not created for it - all is well, but when you have the characters breaking the 4th wall addressing to us as if we were part of their discussions it all goes wrong. Add to that repetitive lines that are echoed not just in sound, they're played out several times from different angles as if mixing bloopers with the good take. Lame exercise.

Had it not been for the Dogma-like thing and with some adjustments this film could be saved in spite of the objectionable morals and story.

Time to talk about what brings attention and audiences to this film and that's the most famous of all names associated with the picture: Caio Blat. One of the lead stars, a spectacular actor who amazes us each performance goes by in anything...except this very movie. It's unbelievably strange that he had to reduce himself to such a low-production that for a time you can't recognise him anymore (expression, delivery of lines, it's so awkward). On a bright note, he dares audiences for pushing the envelope for his craft in ways that no Hollywood major stars could ever do, and while an infamous film on its own to the point it looks like as a career killer (Cainan Baladez only made this film) it didn't do any damage to him. Blat only got better from here.

It's an almost watchable thing that will make you fuzzy and mixed after the whole rush. I don't oppose its themes or justifications since many directors had walked on those issues: Pasolini, Larry Clark, Von Trier, Van Sant and more. What I do oppose is the way one deals with those issues, the way they are presented (here without style and or substance); and on a lower scale, a validation of those "heroes" because that's where the danger begins to the point sore excuses of beings endorse everything that's presented because you're spoon feeding audiences rather than making a critical thinking. The final acted sequence is unforgettanly absurd and goes beyond reasoning. 5/10.

I took the DVD by chance to home and had a wonderful surprise. Well, there were some good reviews made by critics from important Brazilian papers and that was the only reason why I decided to watch it. But, anyway, it didn't look very attractive to me at first sight.

After the first 20 minutes, I thought "Damn, it's just another movie about teenagers snorting coke and stuff like that". However, in the end of the movie, I was just like: "Jesus! How could this man make such a great film with so little money?!" It's obvious that a film with practically no resources (13,000 Brazilian Reais, what, in 2002, was about 4,000 US dollars) has its defects. The photography lacks quality and some dialogues are unnecessary. But these "problems" only contribute to bring us the "Audacity" that Alexandre Stockler looks for. The Brazilian director created a manifesto called TRAUMA (in English, Trying to Realize Anything Urgent with a Minimum of Audacity). In Cat's Cradle there's certainly much more than a "Minimum of Audacity". Using black humor and social criticism, Stockler alerts us about how sadly nihilistic and hedonistic our society became. Although the movie may sound pessimistic, its realization shows the director's belief that it's still time to think what we want from our lives. Let's wait for Alphavella, Stockler's next project.

*If you have the DVD at home, take a look on the extras where you'll find an interview with the director and the complete interviews with young people which appear during the beginning and the end of the movie.

Cama De Gato (Cat's Cradle) is the best Brazilian film I've seen in the last 10 years. It's very deep and still very funny, like the Brazilian society is, with all it's problems but still a great country with great people, but probably the worst politicians on earth. Cama De Gato does not try to show the things differently as they are in reality, it makes philosophy with the ordinary life of three young upper middle class teenagers that get into big troubles just because they were looking for a "bit of fun"... Very impressive and important film to understand a little more about this very complex society. Simply the best. I'm very interested in Alexandre Stockler's next project.