Just watched the movie in Coimbra during "Caminhos do Cinema Português", with comments by the director and some of the actors afterward.
The speeches were, like the rest of the movie, stereotypical. Ironic, but sumptuously received by the eager audience, clapping and nodding almost as fiercely as they laughed during the actual movie. The main actor said he is sick of people's preconception of Portuguese cinema, that all the "people" seem to want are movies with explosions, naked women.. movies without a soul. The director claims he wanted to produce something that represents friendship, basing this on his life experience. They talked a lot about gaining friendships on the set.
This is a movie about people that lived together for a period in their lives and never saw each other again before the event in the title: the funeral of one of them. They reminisce about the times where they were together (doing what? drinking, smoking, going to clubs) and while they are cold to each other at the beginning, in the final shots they are jumping and kissing each other. Take out the localized reference (the hazing) and there's a textbook Hollywood argument.
That would be OK, even after hearing the smug speeches. It would even have been acceptable that they fall into the own pitfalls they say they avoid, by creating the most vulgar collection of stereotypes possible, "hot" frustrated actress and gay couple included. Everyone could live with the irony that this woman goes through the whole movie to realize she can't stand being a cheap masturbation icon anymore, even though every shot with her is focused on her breasts or legs (as more than half of the movie, while everyone else has jackets on, she's wearing a mini skirt and a sleeveless top) and reaches a climax of absurdity as she wipes herself as she sits in the toilet, camera angle slightly above the knees. As to the gay couple, I would call this movie plainly homophobic, but as the audience reacted extremely well to the constant mockery, I will pretend that could be normal also. Even though I can't help but wonder why the gay man of the group was the only one to bring his partner.
The acting is terrible, everyone said it, as most of the actors are amateurs. Actually, the few funny moments that can be cherished come clearly from improvisation during group talk. The audience was also prepared as they did not fail to mention this was a very low budget film, without any support from the state (but with a list of "supporting entities" that filled the screen during the credits for almost more than a minute).
One of the main actors claimed something interesting: he does not drink, he does not smoke, he did not even go to university. A "critical" scene is when the stuck-up professor finally admits he likes the simple things of life and asks his own students for rolling paper, to give an example of its relevance. This actor, however, was one of the contributors of life stories to the authenticity of the film. All the actors are claimed to have participated in the movie without demanding any compensation as they all loved the story so much. This is what pains me. The stories they share, artificial. The dialog seems to have been translated from English through Google (and ironically the subtitles the other way around). I can not imagine anyone going through their stories. Probably the best part was the hazing. From then on, we have sentimental child caring hungover students, a game of "I never" (that in my generation only started being played commonly after popularization through Lost), throwing paper planes to resemble snow, taking care of a depressed guy because a girl did not like him by singing in the rain... This could've easily been a parody to the American "Teenage" Dream.. but unfortunately it isn't. I have had my share of exaggerated group laughter for a while now. I would not be surprised if the screenplay just said for half the movie "pretend you're having fun" during the reminiscing scenes.
Essentially, this is it: the movie has nothing but a bunch of people drinking and acting like bohemian students without knowing what that is. Pseudo-philosophy is also delivered: the professor (who gained an accent uncharacteristic of the region from "memory" to "present" time-line) is shown as the responsible one without knowing why he acts that way, when he was the worst of them all. On the other side, the cool guy in the group is the one who gave up engineering for traveling and writing columns on some newspaper (constantly referring to other cultures as superior to ours, typical Portuguese attitude, so that's accurate). The best things in life are simple, screw the rest and dance in the rain. If simple life is indeed as simple as theirs...
Should mention also the soundtrack: The highlights were Gogol Bordello's Alcohol and "Supertheory of Supereverything", noting that the first one was played when they were drinking, and the second one when a very religious lady was presenting an adequately decorated house (the song describes the bible as a not very interesting read).
Concluding, even after all this, the movie was very well received by the public. We're asked to rate it after the session, most of the votes I noticed gave maximum score. If you like the typical movies I have described throughout the review and if you're Portuguese, there's a strong chance you will enjoy the experience. However, I'm not one of those and I certainly hope there are more people out there who can recognize this as the presumptuous yet superficial piece that it is. And every foreigner that is steered away from it will increase the chances that when there actually exists good Portuguese cinema, they may actually give it a chance.
Thank you for reading.
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