I just arrived back from a very special session of this movie on the 39th Sao Paulo International Exhibition of Cinema. Maybe I should have waited to cool off my head first, but I couldn't. This special sessions was at Sala Sao Paulo, home of the best Latin American orchestra, OSESP, and one of the top ten best concert rooms of the world. To this orchestra and at this place is where the main character, Laerte, wants to join as a violinist in the film. After the movie, Heliopolis Orchestra, the one whose beginning was similar to what is shown at the film, played a short but beautiful concert, and it was unforgettable. As the summary says, after failing the test to enter OSESP, Laerte is forced to give classes to young class in a school in Heliopolis, a very poor outskirts neighborhood which in Brazil we usually call a "favela". The movie was very realistic, to me, who love music as the greatest of the arts and who goes to Sala Sao Paulo to see OSESP playing very often, it was much of a pleasure. But I'm not just that, I'm also someone who was raised in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, and many things which happen in the movie made me remember things that I passed through. But you don't have to have any of these characteristics to love this movie, you just have to love music and believe in it's "power to calm down even the most dangerous beasts", quoting Laerte from a scene. The movie is filled all the time with musical references, but I repeat, if you enjoy music, no matter the style, you will love it, especially the adaptations made of some classics with the "Brazilian way" if you know what I mean. I'm not sure if it was the director of the film or if it was Happin Hood (a rapper who makes some songs to the film and also appears in it), who said that the biggest message of the film was that "talented people can be born anywhere", I agree, but I make an addendum saying that the movie also wanted to say that talent is not everything, you also need OPPORTUNITY to show you talents, and this the film shows very well. In Brazil, on the last 20 years poor people started to have more opportunities of studying and having a good life. I'm myself an example of that. I believe that this message should be sent to the whole world: give equal opportunities to everyone and we will listen, see or enjoy beautiful and amazing things.
