Walmor Chagas Movies

Using comedy and melodrama this film reflects upon the filmmaking process as it follows a young woman's attempts to create an avant garde film. Alice has just lost her father, and just divorced her husband David. She wants to make a film on artist Marcel Duchamp and trace his imaginary trip to Brazil. But first she must find financial backing and a leading man. She finds the latter in Antonio, a musician. She has no luck finding money until she becomes involved with the Baron, a drug trafficker. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

On the eve of the October, 1930 installation of Getulio Vargas as a dictator in Brazil, a leader of the opposition Liberal Alliance Party was murdered. This imaginative and well-wrought, fictional film is about the indirect involvement of Anayde Beiriz (Tania Alves) in that murder, but rather than focus on the political consequences, the film concentrates on the personality and character of the woman herself. Anayde was not bound by puritanical or religious restrictions in her relationships with men, and so her affair with the journalist Joao Dantes (Claudio Marzo) was sexually liberated for its time. Dantas had tight political connections with the military head of the Republican Party, making his own politics clear - what is less clear is the motivation for his subsequent actions. When the leader of the Liberal Alliance Party invades Dantas' apartment and makes public intimate letters and photographs of his relationship with Anayde, the journalist tracks down the man in a restaurant, and kills him. Since the dictator Vargas was supported by Dantas and considered a fascist by many, the underlying questions about Anayde are whether or not she could be considered "liberated," or was she simply a product of one time, one political outlook, and one place? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Director Alberto Graca has tried to re-create the environment in Brazil upon the return to civilian, party politics after more than 10 years of military rule. The opposition to military rule now spends its time in power struggles and temporary alliances as factions and parties vie for a place at the top of the ladder. None of the in-fighting among the maze of protagonists can be accomplished without extensive discussions -- a classic Latino approach that seems to be as much a part of the culture as language itself. Some viewers without enough background may find the multiple characters and political complexities a little hard to follow. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide