angelocmartins Reviews

Nosso Sonho (2023)

An Unexpected fairy tale of friendship

[10/10 · 28 September 2023]

Nosso Sonho tells the story of this musical duo that hit the charts in Brazil of late 1990s. Grewing up in a favela of São Gonçalo, minor city of Metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, we are quickly attached to the acting presenting this beautiful friendship. Of course the poverty, violence and social issues are there as the real landscape they are part of but the director focused on goodwill, unlike the majority of big movie hits in Brazil.

We follow Claudinho & Buchecha through the early days in their childhood until they finally became the biggest stars of the newborn style of "Funk Melody", the local adaptation of Miami Freestyle music of Stevie B, Tony Garcia and Noel. The first music we loudly listen in the story is called "Rap do Amigo"(Friend´s Rap) and it set the tone. At this point of the story it is impossible not to sympathize with the protagonists and even thrill after every successful step to the fame.

Most of Brazilians know the end of the story but the movie is so well delivered with parallel plots that the audience keep waiting for something else and in high spirits until the very last scene.

Superb!

When the Wind Blows (1986)

Brilliant movie

[10/10 · 5 November 2021]

The premise for this movie is terrible: what if a nuclear bomb really drops into England (western civilization)? Different from many stories on this topic focusing on big cities, armies and politics, it goes deeply in one of the smallest cells of human being: an old couple living in the countryside.

There is a complete void that keeps growing up all over the movie. No activities outside, no communication, no food, no water, no contact with other people but the movie is fulfilled with touching dialogues, the humanity and common reactions of the couple are perfect. With only 2 characters appearing in the whole story, there is also a shadow fading that acts like a 3rd character: hope! Hilda has her hope in Jim and Jim hopes the government will fix everything until life goes back to normality. Void grows, hope fades.

But what makes this movie brilliant and it is so hard to sustain in such a scenario is the quality of dialogues.

This movie is a must-watch for everyone who liked "Grave of Fireflies", the Ghibli's studio movie on the same topic with a kind of similar approach focusing on two Japanese brothers released 2 years after "When the Wind Blows".

The Life of Budori Gusuko (2012)

Good animation, good story

[7/10 · 27 October 2021]

The plot of this movie is the opposite of what we are accustomed to in Ghibli movies. In the most-famous-japanese studio animations, nature is always a good friend that only fights back against bad things done to it. Not here! Also, the beginning of the story is very sad and hopeless.

There is nothing like "fugere urbem" story type here, our hero runs away from the countryside to take shelter and find the solution in the technological equipments of the city.

The animation is good with a well told tale.

Forest of Piano (2018– )

Good story with a poor animation

[6/10 · 27 October 2021]

Me and my wife couldnt stop watching it until the final episode. It is a beautiful and simple story enriched by the excellent soundtrack you would expect when exploring such a theme - the main character has a sad familiar background but mastered compositions from Chopin in his magic piano.

But the animation here is so poor, there is so many frozen images that I feel embarassed to recommend it to someone else who enjoys animation-style series. It looks like a perfect script lost for the low budged project. I hope some other team work in this script in the future with the proper technical resources it needs, specially because one of hardest things to do in animation is to synchronize and put weight in movements of someone playing an instrument.