Poucos filmes conseguem intuir tão bem uma certa identidade brasileira como "Aquarius". Acho que até mais do que "O Som ao Redor", existe aqui uma vontade de se dedicar a uma construção mítica do país que não passa apenas pela tensão de classes, mas que busca uma valoração cultural. Uma valoração que vai além das citações musicais ou de referências mais diretas, mas que de certa forma identifica como alguns valores culturais acabam formando o caráter de uma pessoa ou de um núcleo de pessoas.

A veia política acaba sendo menos didática do que em "O Som ao Redor", mas ainda é um filme um pouco condescendente com algumas coisas, em especial nessa relação interpessoal de classes, nessa trânsito entre…

A pretty good mix tape about things that stay. Sonia Braga deserves a lot of the praise she received, but I’d argue the film most essential element is the leisure but exact pace (140 minutes rarely moves this natural) because this is a movie about things, their ownership and the value time gives to them and it is on those moments that it feels stronger. Aquarius is very much a second film often playing a little too safe around elements that worked the previous time (another nightmare sequence, Kleber’s tendency towards demonstrative dialogue, his strong foot at mapping space). The main difference is that while Neighboring Sounds was a pressure cooker narrative about general malaise, Aquarius is specific not only…

I'm a pisces.

O dever do cidadão de bem é boicotar Aquarius.

★★★★★★★★★★

The quote above is not from the movie. It's a critic review from brazilian magazine Veja - which is the most popular magazine of the country -, and it says that the duty of the good citizen is to boycott Aquarius.

This is a movie about Clara, an elder lady, played by Sonia Braga in an absolutely mesmerizing performance, who's being tormented by a construction company which wants her to leave her apartment so they can have the whole building, something she refuses to do.

According to one of the most influents pieces of press in Brazil, this film should be boycotted. It is the duty of…

Numa cena rápida de Aquarius, Clara, a personagem de Sonia Braga, depois de visitar o túmulo do marido no cemitério, observa dois coveiros retirando os restos mortais de uma cova para desocupá-la. A imagem, que apenas exemplifica uma lógica comum aos empreendimentos funerários, dura cerca de um minuto, talvez menos, mas resume boa parte do drama da própria Clara e da essência do filme de Kleber Mendonça Filho: o que está em discussão é a troca do velho pelo novo. Ou ainda, do velho pelo novo para reforçar o velho. O olhar de estranhamento da protagonista para aquela cena tem justificativa. Clara se enxergou ali. Logo ela, que sempre foi uma mulher avançada, jornalista, uma mãe que deixou os filhos…

I grew up in my grandmother's house. My parents would drop me and my brother there in the mornings so they could go to work all day and then take us back home at night. She'd cook us lunch, get us dressed and send us off to school. I know all the neighbors from her building and from all the others down the street. They've all seen me grow up, literally. They were there when I was born, during my childhood when I was running around everywhere, spreading chaos around this building that consisted mostly of elderly people, they were there during my annoying pre-teen years when I didn't talk to anyone because of ~ teen angst ~ and they…

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Here's my brief blurb for Reverse Shot's Best of 2016 countdown:

On the red carpet just moments before the world premiere of Aquarius, director Kleber Mendonça Filho, lead actress Sonia Braga, and other key personnel from the film staged a protest in front of the cameras, holding up signs decrying the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff as a coup d’etat. One sign read, “Brazil is not a democracy anymore.” This is a claim that should resonate with any Brazilian with a political memory, and that’s why Aquarius is a dangerous film. Mendonça’s second feature depicts Braga as Clara, a leftist intellectual and former music critic who has survived breast cancer as well as the 20-year right-wing military government that…

Cryptic, passionate, unquieting, allegorical, humane and deeply Brazilian. Kleber Mendonça Filho's 140-minute epic runs smoothly and steadily like a tiny stream of water, unsuspectingly and incredibly patiently deepening towards a gigantic waterfall of catharsis. So irrevocably soaked in symbolism as monumentally emotional, the picture keeps navigating through a wide variety of themes like it's certain that even the most impenetrably metaphorical sequences will be unconsciously assimilated due to the sheer absolute control that its protagonist exercises over the audience, as well as its director has of cinema.

Predatory capitalism, class privilege, racial tensions, generation gap, identity and gender studies, geographical exclusion, sexual revolution, patriarchy, nepotism, shifting family dynamics and conflicting culture habits are sophisticatedly engulfed by, and intertwined in, Aquarius.…

Aquarius wouldn't have made its way into my watchlist if it wasn't for Letterboxd. One amongst the highest-rated films on the site for the previous year, it's disappointing that the movie didn't leave much of an impression on me and even though Sônia Braga delivers a fantastic performance, this Brazilian-French drama as a whole is more or less underwhelming.

Aquarius tells the story of a retired music critic who is the last resident of the titular building that happens to have a rich history. The plot follows her life & a chain of events that are set in motion when she refuses to sell her apartment to the construction company which already owns the rest of the old building and intends…

que surpresa ótima!
Kleber Mendonça Filho é um nome até que conhecido atualmente no meio do cinema brasileiro, e claro que foi justamente o nome dele que me chamou atenção nessa obra.
Clara é uma senhora forte, e independente, e vai lutar até o fim pelo seu patrimônio. A performance da Sonia Braga é fantástica como sempre, não deixa a desejar em momento algum.
Gosto muito dessa cara de brasileiro que o filme tem, sejam nos diálogos ou ambientação, é gostoso de ver, dá até pra se sentir em casa, pelo menos pra mim pessoalmente por já ter morado ma cidade.
Você sabe desde o começo que está vendo algo sensível, o diretor coloca bem o amor pelo Recife no…