From the movie corner of Graziella:
After his acclaimed 2012 debut Neighboring Sounds (last week’s recommendation), writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho followed up with another film about his hometown, Recife. Aquarius (2016) takes a passionate look at the quintessentially neo-capitalist problem of developers trying to evict tenants from old buildings they want to gentrify. Graced by a memorable performance of the mythical actress Sonia Braga (a living embodiment of the glories of Brazilian cinema and the nation’s cultural traditions), Aquarius makes expert use of flashbacks in a narrative designed to depict the synergy of space, time and politics. Mendonça Filho has noted the parallel between Braga’s character resisting eviction and Brazil’s former President Dilma Rousseff, impeached earlier in 2016 in what the filmmaker and many other Brazilian artists and intellectuals describe as a right-wing legislative coup d’état. In short, yet another film not to be missed!
Watch Aquarius on Kanopy HERE.
