"The Man and his Cage" is a little hard to categorize or find a deep meaning to its slightly confusing idea or to find main purpose, if its to deal
with alienation, obsession or just a man's inner chaos that reduce him to limited connections with the world (if any). In it, Hugo Carvana plays a widowed
plastic artist obsessed with his mother-in-law while she's on a trip and he keeps himself locked in his room just remembering some facts and experiences
from his past. Somehow some of those events make a totality of what his experience in the present time, but to me they're all very random just as memories
tend to reappear and disappear in our heads.
Obvious to anyone that he cannot deal with the outside world, clashing with other artist and the people around him - like the homosexual man (Jofre Soares)
who simply follwed him because he thought he was one too, and they were both loners - and when he hires a maid to help him at home he wants her as his
companion, yet he still keeps thinking about his mother-in-law - and the movie makes it a quite enigmatic matter, if he's attracted to her in a physical way
or just a mother figure that he loves. All we know is that he barely remembers his wife.
I'm really torn apart with this one, but I like to think the pendulum is more inclined towards a favorable, good experience rather than a disappointment. The typical new wave style of the 60's is very appealing to tell its series of events rather than telling a story. On the topic of a man being alienated and sucumbing to
paranoia and fears it's an interesting film too, though it wanders a little and not all situations were greatly exposed or it was hard to find a poignant
connection to all the things he go through - like the whole ordeal back when he was younger and waiting for his mother to arrive at the airport when a
series of misunderstandings got him detained by the police. There are reflections to be made with this but they fade away quickly after the movie's over. Maybe
it'll work more for those who read the original story by Carlos Heitor Cony (didn't read, so I can't compare it).
Another problem from the experience and one that I cannot tell if it was conceived by the filmmakers or an error with the copy I've seen was that
a 20-minute portion of the film is pitch black, zero images and just the sound (the man's introduction to the maid, her hiring and early days before he asks
her to take the house key and leave him locked). If intentional, it was awful and lots of folks will walk out of it; if the version that survived missed the
frames and just kept the audio, maybe someday the error will be fixed.
Limited with its reflection and somewhat effective with its presentation, "The Man and his Cage" that the company of others are more important than
just being alone with memories since those can only be brought back to betrays us or traumatize us. They're just the past and cling to them only serves to kill
a little of the present, specially if such memories are bad and sad things to be remembered, only worth recalling if they constructed people into better beings. 6/10.
