With the black screen, you can hear a song by Father Marcelo Rossi. The lyrics talk about God and how He will protect His faithful on difficult nights. A great start for a film that will deal with religion as a facade of the hypocrisy that sometimes invades more traditionalist groups.
“I grew up in the countryside, so for me, this conservative question of social performance versus the truth is really fascinating.”
Carolina Markowicz, director of “Carvão”, has already made six short films, winning awards, including at the Cannes Film Festival. This one, however, is her first feature.
According to her, it was not a quick job to do, the script took about seven years to reach its final version.
“It takes a long time to make a feature, capture, lift the film. The script changed, and went towards what we are experiencing here in the country”, says the director of the film, which arrives in theaters this Thursday (3), after passing through the 46th São Paulo International Film Festival. .
In this case, Brazil is portrayed through the interior of the state of São Paulo.
A family of four lives in the vicinity of the city of Joanópolis. They own a charcoal plant and, when the movement is bad, they support themselves by cooking and selling lunchboxes. The biggest problem is the patriarch. Without moving or talking, the elderly person ends up becoming a hindrance to part of the family that needs to take care of him at all times, including handling the oxygen cylinder to which he is connected, 24 hours a day.
One morning, however, a nurse arrives at the family’s home and makes a very refusable offer: open a space in the house and shelter a mysterious foreigner in exchange for a large sum of money.
Without much thought, a vacancy in the house is opened by family members, the foreigner occupies it and changes the entire social structure of the house.
The setting in the film is essential for the development of the story. It is an isolated place, in the middle of the countryside, with a small house, but full of rooms; doors and windows are closed and family members try to attract potential visitors, who arrive unannounced, to the backyard.
“The interior has these less inhabited and less gentrified spaces. It would make more sense for someone to hide in this region”, says Carolina. “Big cities are more dispersed ideologically and in terms of location. The story could take place in a metropolis, but it wouldn’t be so easy,” explained the filmmaker.
That said, Carolina prefers to show than to say, but that doesn’t mean that the examples she brings in the film are easy to understand.
Between the lines is the absurd. Something totally meaningless, which is contrary to common sense.
“I wanted to bring back the absurdity,” he says. “Nowadays he is very naturalized in Brazil”, she adds.
Carolina cites the presidential debate where, according to her, a priest of a June festival appeared.
“I wonder, where did that come from?”, Carolina said.
For the director, having a gun policy to combat violence, for example, is fallacious, but it is presented to society as if it makes sense.
“There is an inversion of values that is sanctioned by the current policy”, comments the filmmaker.
Values that, in the film, are completely shaken by Miguel (César Bordón), who arrives only to expose all the secrets and lies that surround an apparently stabilized family.
Maeve Jinkings, who plays the wife of the house, Irene, does a formidable job bringing a character who, despite being strong, remains in the dark, whether due to financial uncertainty or the estrangement of her husband, Jairo (Rômulo Braga), who is increasingly inclined to overnight getaways.
The highlight of the film, however, is Jean de Almeida, who plays the couple’s only child. The character is spared nothing. In addition to serving as comic relief, he represents the spectator, who watches everything passively, laughing a few times, questioning other characters, but, at the climax of the film, just watching what happens right in front of him.
“I appreciate the subtlety in some stories”, says Carolina, “it doesn’t have to be all explanatory or explicit, even I don’t know where certain aspects of the story end up”.
Some people have already asked the director what she thought about the end of the film, which ends in an unknown. She does not answer.
“Each one can understand one thing. I like this idea of the movie being in the mind of the viewer.”
Source: CNN Brasil
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
