Natal da Portela

This is quite an awful film, directed by an allegedly famous Brazilian director, Paulo Cezar Saraceni, and starring several actors really popular in that country. To me, the direction seemed terribly amateurish (the editing even moreso) and the actors seemed too good to be acting in pornography. It is a biopic of Natal da Portela who established the first Samba School in Rio de Janeiro. After watching this film, I have only the vaguest notions of what a Samba School is (those notions solely provided by the Q&A session after the film). The character presented on screen is different in every scene. The only character trait that was well established is that he had one arm. The film vaguely tells us how he lost his arm. The drama doesn't work, the comedy works even worse. At least there's some good music once in a while. It wants to be a musical, I think, but I don't think they could afford to make it one. I liked the documentary scenes of Carnival at the film's end.

I doubt Americans will have many chances to see this film, anyways. If the chance arises, avoid it like the plague. The music is nice and there are some pretty colors. That's all. Rent Black Orpheus instead, I implore you!

3/10.

Nice biopic about one of the most remarkable characters in the history of samba and carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Besides his core role in samba school Portela, Natal had a tragic life, and represents both the difficulties imposed to black poor people to have an honest life and the connections between crime or misdemeanor and social work as there is a lack of public policies in poor neighborhoods. The film is visually very nice, and a skilled group of actors and actresses performed together with some historical samba musicians. As a serious drawback, the script does not connect very well the different events it shows (and many important events and historical characters have been correcly included), and many dialogues are too theater-like and unnatural, besides not well performed. Soundtrack is excellent, what obviously is no surprise at all. In the ending, some documentary footage and carnival!

I am writing this comment in the attempt to correct what I think is a great injustice; it is very rare that my rate is higher than the average IMDb user rating and this is one of these cases. This is not a great film, perhaps. It is imperfect. It has mostly static shots, and the production values don't compare to Hollywood ones. But it has enough of the essential qualities a film should have, such as a good story and a screenplay that tells it intelligently and heartwarmingly; it also has good actors (most of them anyway). The staging is stylized, rather than realistic; I think many people are not prepared to accept or even understand that. At the very least, its subject matter is very important for Brazilians; it has to do with the cultural history of Rio de Janeiro and, perhaps less so, of other Brazilian States as well.