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80
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Washington Post
Shot almost entirely on location with a hand-held camera, director Karim Ainouz's film draws you in close. The charisma and intensity of Lazaro Ramos as Joao holds you there.
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75
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San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
In his thrilling feature debut, Madame Sata, Brazilian filmmaker Karim Ainouz doesn't glorify dos Santos but examines the hot, reckless fever of his life in all its thorny complexity.
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75
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Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Whether or not Ainouz's stylish directorial debut gets to the "real" Madame Satã is beside the point, but as a celebration of a figure who fashioned his own identity from pieces of pop culture and street poetry, from song and fashion and fury, it's memorable.
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70
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The New York Times Stephen Holden
It is a voluptuous, hot-blooded portrait of a social outcast, a black, homosexual criminal who in acting out his gaudiest Hollywood dreams, transcendently reinvented himself.
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70
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The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
An intensely realized, beautifully shot drama.
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63
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Premiere Peter Debruge
In this vibrant character study, newcomer Lázaro Ramos plays Francisco with an almost animal intensity.
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63
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The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Truly strange, and often captivating.
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50
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New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The movie covers only the early years of his (Joao Francisco dos Santos) rise to fame and apparently enduring legend, but the camera never pulls back to provide a social or historical context.
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50
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Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
No-nonsense critiques of Brazil's endemic poverty and deeply flawed criminal-justice system lend substance to what otherwise might have seemed a flimsy and sensationalistic tale.
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50
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Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
The result leaves the movie feeling like a one-note take on a complex subject.
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