“Inevitably funny”, says screenwriter about Zeca Pagodinho’s film

There is no shortage of things in the film that promises to bring the life and work of Zeca Pagodinho These are funny stories. Screenwriter and co-producer of the film “Let Life Take Me” , Roberto Faustino managed to list several of them just during the interview with CNN.

“The film is not a comedy, but it is inevitably very funny,” said Faustino.

“Mainly because of the irreverence and the world he represents. It's a very direct world where people say things directly, there's not a lot of curveballs, there's not a lot of detours, and that gives rise to very original characters,” he added.

For Faustino, one of the best features of the film is the world it presents: the Rio suburbs of the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, in which Zeca began composing the lyrics that would become part of the history of samba in Brazil.

Precisely because of all the good stories, the screenwriter decided to write a fiction film, or as he himself described it, a “fiction that embraces reality”.

“I made a point of doing fiction, because the stories are so incredible that I thought: you don't have to reconstruct it, you have to dramatize it here. It’s not possible for someone to keep saying what exactly happened, this is a world of action, not a world of words”, said Roberto Faustino.

Zeca Pagodinho's loud party

The film will focus on the beginning of Zeca's professional career, between the end of the 1970s and the end of the 1980s. The moment in which the singer released his first album, after refusing to sing, but accumulating written song lyrics.

“At the beginning, he had a lot of skill with verses in the alto part and had a lot of skill with the lyrics of the songs, so much so that people started to bring harmonies and composed songs for him to put lyrics to”, he explained. “So, over time, he accumulated many songs that he composed, and suddenly, when he finally accepted being a singer, he went to record his first album and he had a lot of hits in the drawer, and they all exploded, right?”

One of the highlights of the film, guarantees Faustino, is precisely the representation of the high party: “The high party ended up being less known in Brazil than the pagode, but it is a very important thing because you improvise. They are not composed songs, they are improvised verses all the time, as if it were a duel, a challenge. And the film starts with one of those challenges, and ends with one of those challenges.”

“And the verses are very funny because it appropriates this humor that is not a derogatory humor, it is not a Marxist, it is not a mouthful, understand? Which involves playing with intelligent things with intelligent images and not with the depreciation of others.

A partner love story

Another point that should surprise viewers in the film is discovering more about the love story between Zeca and Mônica — and the many stories it has already provided.

“It's a very unusual couple, Mônica and Zeca, because they don't have a romantic love, nor an adventurous love, but they have a pact that lasts to this day. Living with them, you realize the power of this pact of intimacy, support, it's a chemistry that isn't very common. It’s more about complicity, about partnership”, explained Faustino.

The screenwriter also highlighted two stories involving the couple that promise to bring laughter in the cinema and mark the audience's memory.

The first is about Zeca and Mônica's wedding, when a few days before the singer (already quite famous) lost his bag with the invitations to the ceremony and the party ended up being “invaded” by hundreds of strangers.

The other shows one of the meetings between the two, at the beginning of their relationship, when Zeca arranged with the operator of an amusement park's ferris wheel to lock the ride high up, and he manages to get Mônica's first kisses, while she tries to cope. with fear of heights.

Filming for the film should begin in the second half of this year. A CNN, Faustino gave more details about where production is at here.