The middle of the world

Movie - The middle of the world.
Imdb - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379199/

Yesterday, i was surfing around to get a glimpse of the movie Central do brasil and netflix showed this movie in its recommendation column.

A family of 7 travel 2000 kms so that the father can get a job. They did it on bicycles. Even though i was very tired, the last two lines were enough for me to browse through the movie. and i ended up watching it completely. First thing, very very impressed by the wife's acting. Rosa, the wife is played by Claudia Abreu and she just was amazing. Kudos to the director/cinematographer for giving us close up shots of her, it just showed her true acting range in a closer look. Had it not been for her, i may not have watched the entire movie. One of the best performances i have seen in recent past (and recently i have seen very good films, see previous blog posts)

But other than a very interesting plot and an awesome performance, the movie was not that appealing. Partly because i found the protagonist, the father Romao, quite deranged. He cared too much for his ambitions, too egoistic to see what the hell his family was going through. And the way he used to rub on his eldest son. True, he also took care of him; I guess it was his style of parenting, his notion of life that i found to be too strange for me to relate to him. And that's why it seems more like fiction than a true story (which it is loosely).

The landscape of Brazil is amazing. The director also does not highlight on road logistics such as water for family, bike tires getting flat etc etc which creates a distance between viewer and actors, we are not with them, we are just watching them. The music is good, especially when the mother and son sing together.

Overall, a very different film, something one should see. If nothing else, watch it for Claudia Abreu.