I wish I had liked this film, or, what would be even better, that the movie made me like it. Skilled casting, nice general plot (two composer partners were rivals in the love a now deceased woman and find out that one of them may be her father), presentation of the changes of samba community in Bixiga, São Paulo, from a generation to another... there are many promising elements, but the outcome seemed chaotic, undevelopped, confusing. There are also many correct political references, but mostly pushing it, not in an organic way. Actually, most of what I have written in my review of 2004 feature film Filhas do Vento, by the very filmmaker Joel Zito Araújo, also applies to this film from 2021: "The film has a fantastic casting and looked promising in its very beginning, but, it did not work. The director, who had only directed previously a documentary about the (lack of) role of black actors in Brazilian television, made an interesting choice: [...] a fictional movie with an almost all-black casting". This movie does not repeat that artificial soap opera style I criticized, but also lacks strength due its lost direction.
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