5/10
Brazilian spoof of The Wizard of Oz, with some surprising ups and many downs
11 December 2016
This is very irregular spoof of The Wizard of Oz, with some ups and many downs, which clearly overcome the former. One of the major drawbacks is the horrible edition work. The beginning of the three men in extreme poverty was surprising and nice, although not all the slapstick was good. I did not like only the anthropomorphic caracara falcons. Mussum and Zacarias's versions of Tin Man and Scarecrow were nice and preserving the traits of thee two characters from "Trapalhões" humor crew. After the crew comes to Oroz town, though, there is a nonsense fight between Didi and the coward Lion, who besides not being a lion challenges him, what is not expected for a coward (Dedé Santana, as usual, is not funny and acts badly). The judgment sung in Northeastern Brazilian "repente" style, though, was extremely good. The homage to "2001: a space odyssey" was quite unexpected and interesting. Anyway, it is impressive how strong was social critic in this child film, something quite unusual: not just an empty denunciation of the poverty and drought in Northeast, but also a grievance against the purchasing of votes, against the traditional power of landowners, against the idea that you may starve and die by thirst but not steal food, and against the view that water is a commodity. On the other hand, sexism and sexploitation (that were so extreme in Brazilian cinema) appear in the completely unnecessary exposure of women butts when the story moves to Rio de Janeiro, despite it was a film made for children.
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