Terra em transe - Glauber Rocha

un film sulla politica, su come cambiare e su come anche in Brasile vale la legge del Gattopardo, cambiare tutto per non cambiare niente.
Paulo sostiene uno che sembra animato dalle migliori intenzioni del mondo, ma quando arriva al potere non può cambiare niente, anche se volesse.
il Potere è irraggiungibile, i presidenti sono pedine di un gioco più grande. pochi decidono dietro le quinte.
il tormento di Paulo è straziante, e il film è di un'attualità sorprendente (si pensi a Obama).
i politici rivoluzionari sono quelli morti.
un film da riscoprire, senza se e senza ma - Ismaele

The title of late Brazilian director Glauber Rocha's third film is pretty much self-explanatory, representative of its significance, position and context in late-1960s Brazilian culture and society: a trance-like trip into the heart of a conflicted country. A heady, surreal chamber-piece deathbed fantasy about the eternal conflict between idealism and pragmatism, shaped as a thinly-veiled allegory of Brazil's political tumults, Terra em Transe is a rushing torrent of images and thoughts aimed squarely at its time and place, but whose lucid thoughts about politics and society remain valid and contemporary…

da qui

…The editing style is definitely from the Soviet montage school of cutting. Jarring juxtapositions and temporal discontinuity abound. While the narrative could hardly be called focused, the images are potent, from the orgiastic celebrations of the upper class, to the characters’ direct confrontation to the camera. The penultimate image is also amazing, as Paulo takes on the sky with a gun. The sound is quite remarkable – it’s an almost subjective mishmash of music, poetry and charged dialogue. This is the first time that many of these Brazilian films have been screened in New Zealand, and after watching Earth Entranced it’s a rare privilege (if you can call it that) to see films burn with such intensity and anger.

da qui

…Whilst ‘Entranced Earth’ can be a difficult cinematic experience at times, the ambition involved and the passion Rocha shows regarding the current state of his homeland makes it a fascinating, often dazzling landmark piece of cinema.

da qui

A difficult film to pick the bones out of, Entranced Earth is deliberately obtuse, abstruse, and defiant in its form. Highly charged with emotion and theatrical in its narrative, the technical choices nevertheless cling to a mockumentary sort of realism. What is being mocked is the political hopelessness of a fictional land, Eldorado, presumably a mirror for Rocha's native Brazil.
Brazil went through a military coup in 1964 when a left-wing leader was replaced with a right-wing one and this film is a fictionalized indictment of prevailing politics. Ultimately the indictment is not of right or left (representatives of both orientations are shown to be corrupt) but of human nature itself. The poet/protagonist Paulo played with conviction by Jardel Filho is not spared either. Curious edits abound and frankly appear at times to be a little forced and affected. In fact affectation is the tone the entire film operates in, made particularly poignant when showcasing the disaffected rural poor. A strange idiosyncratic film that has deliberate difficulty in existing as a unified whole.

da qui