User Reviews

Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema is the most astounding Brazilian movie of the 90's. As a remade of the classic masterpiece of the Cinema Novo with the same name, the movie drive us to a storm of feelings and doubts. In this version Julio Bressane, the original director, rewrote the script to best fit the new conception of an inhuman crime. Alexandre Frota is the tormented guy who kills the family and goes to the movies as if it doesn't really matters. He was at the time the most promiser upcoming artist. Frota today is a porn star. The trajectory of the character should be compared with the one made by Rodya Raskolnikov in the literature classic 'Crime and Punishment' written by Dostoyevsky. The director's vanguard position influenced by Locke shows us the real dilemma of a killer, the ambiguity of the human being. We can discern some Nietzsche's positivism influence in the picture as in the famous crime scene. To give us the sense of reality, Neville, the director, shot his movie in an exotic distribution of colors, inserting the purple and white tendency in our times. In his movie's composition impeccable, Neville remembers us of great cinema classics such as The Discreet Charm of the Burgeoisie and many of István Szabó pictures, such as Mephisto. Counting with a undefectable supporting casting, Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema is the best representer of what's happening in the Brazilian cinema. I don't give it the highest grade because only God deserves a ten.

In Rio de Janeiro, after an altercation with his father and mother, the young man Bebeto (Alexandre Frota) kills his family and goes to the movie theater. He impassively watches four weird short stories. The first one is about a wealthy woman, Márcia (Claudia Raia), bored with her marriage, who decides to spend alone a couple of days in her house in Petrópolis. When her best friend Renata (Louise Cardoso) unexpectedly arrives to stay with her, they get drunk and a tragedy is announced. The second one is about a looser that arrives home upset and drunk and kills his family. The third one is about a tragic lesbian repressed relationship. The last one is about a man addicted in stealing women's underwear.

"Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema" is a remake of a Brazilian underground classic of 1967 of Júlio Bressane with the same title. I have never had the chance to watch the original version, but the 1991 is very irregular, having some good points, but also very weak and silly parts, like for example the man addicted in stealing women's underwear. Another negative aspect is the indecision of Neville de Almeida between a heavy drama or a dark humor. In the end, none of the foregoing genres works well. The movie explores too much the body of Claudia Raia, who was in evidence in 1991. In 2005, we see that she was indeed too fat and with cellulite for the present standards of beauty and aesthetic. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema" ("Killed the Family and Went to the Movie Theater")

If you live in Brazil (or neighboring country) as I do, DON'T be surprised when you see a video cover with body parts of three (two girls and a guy) sexy twentyish hunks juxtaposed on a newspaper front page. Its headline is the movie's title: HE KILLED HIS FAMILY AND WENT TO THE MOVIES. Upon closer inspection, don't be further surprised that the threesome is comprised of the late 80's early 90's Brazilian male model-turned-actor Alexandre Frota (often shown on "all five" on a carpet), his then-girlfriend- the vuluptuous former ballet dancer (with a body to prove it) TV star Claudia Raia, and also sexy twentysh comedienne Louise Cardoso. Well, those would be the familiar elements, if somewhat racy, still within the realm of most people's universes. However, rent the movie and watch what's going on. THIS IS NO SOFT PORN. It's mainstream entertainment with some of Brazil's major stars, directed by one of the country's greatest. It never even caused a stir when it was released........Nevertheless, unless you find Pasolini's Salom old hat, you are in for a surprise. What you see on film surpasses even the wildest fantasies of a "debauched" Chilean or Argentine. This film definitely proves why this segment of Brazilian society is so notorious for "debauchery." Now I always thought debauchery was such a Victorian cliche, and still do, though things like this movie remind me it has a vague meaning. It's unbelievable that Brazil is surrounded by traditional societies where in most cases, divorce and sodomy are still criminalized (and recently reaffirmed in the case of divorce and homosexuality in Chile). Scenes in this Brazilian mainstream production couldn't even be imagined by most of its neighboring countries, forget about judging them. They are truly unheard of. First, the basic sexual and hormonal instinct which triggers everything in this film (and in this perhaps mythical segment of the Brazilian population)is shockingly different. Secondly, the normalcy surrounding the antics of two nude (wearing only very high heels) young girl friends, purportedly heterosexual, is chilling. But their fetishes are so outlandish, labels like heterosexual are useless boundaries. Their antics are a hoot. The movie is made up of five vignettes. It's worth renting, even if you speak no Portuguese, for the visuals of two of the vignettes. It is really unusual. And viewing them is essential to understanding that Brazil, morally and sexually, is a country that does not belong in the Americas. Worth a peek.

Not very linear and extremely well filmed unorthodox film. Its twenty first minutes are composed by overacting and stylish high-contrast black and white cinematography, which, together with the chosen soundtrack, gives to the first part of the movie a unique cartoon-like flavour. When the (first) family killer goes to cinema, image becomes coloured and, still full of overacting and characters dissatisfied with their lives, becomes more a tragicomedy, with other bizarre crimes. Among those crimes, there is a a pannties serial robber (the worst thing in the whole film) and the weirdest - and yet interesting - shootout I have ever seen. Reality, fiction, imagination and news overlap and sometimes the movie have an oneiric or nightmarish atmosphere. One of the sketches (Ana Beatriz Nogueira's) had different possibilities portrayed in the very same film. On the other hand, actress Maria Gladys has multiple characters throughout the movie. Life dissatisfaction, dysfunctional families, lesbian sexuality, and nudity (both male and female) are some core issues. Pure absurd sexploitation situations coexist with more delicate sexual scenes. There are also some scenes which approximate the production to the musical genre. Neville D'Almeida is a filmmaker who has never been afraid of experimenting, creating, trying, making what he wished, doesn's matter if it would be censored, be a commercial failure, receive bad critics or whatever else. While sometimes the outcome may not be good acocording to someone's tastes (I really disliked some of his movies), he is also very able to make unique and unconventional films far from easy formulae, what is an artistic merit. Killed the Family and Went to the Movies, a remake of a 1969 movie by Júlio Bressane, is certainly one of the best of Neville D'Almeida's cinematographic experiments (among his films I have watched so far, it is the best together with Lady on the Bus). However, there is a problemetic issue which I cannot help but criticize: the recurrent joke with sexual harassment is disgusting.