House of Sand

Tonight I stayed home and watched House of Sand (Casa de Areia) with Fernanda Montenegro.  The film truly captivated me with it's delicate yet engaging story in the sand dunes of Northern Brazil.  The cinematography was just phenomenal.  I first learned about Fernanda Montenegro after watching Central Station.

The film begins in 1910 as a mother (Fernanda Montenegro) and her pregnant daughter (Fernanda Torres) traverse the sand dunes to begin a colony, forced upon the husband of the pregnant daughter.  Eventually, the rest of the crew escapes and the husband dies leaving an older mother and her pregnant daughter at the mercy of the desert. Their main goal is to leave the desert and move back to the city, but the immense desert and lack of resources impede their goal.

I very much enjoyed the film and the ending was just perfect. 

Carrapicho

Life continues to speed up with many things.  But the weather in LA has been fantastic.  Over the past few weeks I've been able to visit Malibu, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Laguna Beach, Crystal Cove, and San Clemente.  I did not take pics but I'm going to try to put up pictures/videos of more places I visit.

For now, enjoy this Brazilian song of Carrapicho.  I love this song!

Disfruten esta cancion Brazilena de Carrapicho.  Me la he pasado ocupadisimo pero he podido visitar las bellas playas del sur de California como Venice, Santa Monica, Malibu, Laguna Beach, Crystal Cove, y San Clemente.  

Bus 174

Wow!  The documentary Bus 174 was quite a ride.  It is a very sad real story about a bus that was hijacked by Sandro, a 19-year old guy who lived in the streets.  The documentary goes deep by telling us Sandro's background and how he ended up where he was.  He was a product of his surroundings, ignored by society, maltreated by police.  He was victim of his own by eventually taking drugs, etc.  He was also a victim of his past.  He never knew his father and his mother was stabbed to death in front of him when he was only a boy.  The documentary was beautifully shot, the narration and story was perfect.   This is not an easy documentary to digest, but it's definitely one of  the best documentaries I've seen in many years.

The Man Who Copied

In April, I get to go to Brazil for the first time!  In order to get ready for Brazil, I want to do my homework on the country.  One of my initial steps is to begin watching Brazilian films.   I just finished watching The Man Who Copied.  In the movie, we follow the life of 19-year-old guy with a job as photocopier operator.  He is quite poor and he finds that in order to get a girl to fall for him, he needs to find a way to make more money.  It was fun to watch and to see different areas of Brazil.  At some point, they are in Rio de Janeiro in all its glory. I can't wait to be there in a few months!

Now the question is, what other Brazilian films should I watch?

Esta pelicula con el nombre no oficial, "El muchacho que copiaba" me gusto por ser divertida y por no tomarse muy seria.  Fue filmada en Brazil.  Pronto ire a Brazil por primera vez, asi es que ver muchas peliculas brazilenas para poder disfrutar Brazil mucho mas cuanto llegue.