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'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

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Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#91

Post by ubermonkey »

arbitrary_name wrote: post #50
ubermonkey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OBAA was technically well executed but, to me, pretty fucking soulless. I haven't seen all the nominees, but the ones I did see -- Train Dreams and Sinners -- were, to our eyes, profoundly better films than OBAA. I'm in particular interested in seeing Hamnet soon; everything I read about it puts it in the same category as TD and S. OBAA was the safe Academy pick, and so that's what they picked.

i thought Sinners was so overhyped. mediocre performances (great music!) and a terrible plot (why were the vampires forced to ask for permission to enter, and then able to storm the building a few scenes later? was there no better way to resolve that then just forget about it) loved OBAA (incredible pacing!) but had its flaws too

>terrible plot (why were the vampires forced to ask for permission to enter, and then able to storm the building a few scenes later?

Imagine dinging an Oscar-winning film's plot this loudly, and being absolutely wrong about something easily verifiable.

The shopkeeper's wife (Grace, played by Li Jun Li) freaks out and explicitly invites them all in.

If I was this offbase with a comment, I'd delete my whole account.

IOW, I quote your own comment history: "how does it feel to be misinformed yet opinionated?"

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#92

Post by jsunderland323 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #80
greiskul wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leg is used both as a urban legend that was told at the region at the time, but also as a metaphor. The surrealist scene where it shows the leg brutally attacking people at night: all the people attacked are prostitutes, gays, etc. People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it. And it is meant to feel meandering cause that is how this period feels for…

That's perfectly nice idea but still doesn't make for a good movie. Making a good movie comes before a nice idea, if a movie is what you're making.

Oh I agree. This was a post-movie rationalization. I think the ending was super frustrating but it was one of those things where after ruminating for a bit, it's like, "okay fine I get it." Maybe, I'm being too charitable to the director. The movie itself was dissatisfying, the reflection on the movie was better.

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#93

Post by aristofun »

lisdexan wrote: post #89
aristofun wrote: post #81

One of the boring and meaningless movies I ever seen. No arc, no coherent story, (almost) no humor, no development, no intrigue, nothing. Only nice picture - then it qualifies as a good YouTube video, not really a movie. Because movies have some laws of the genre, this thing doesn’t even break any laws like great art does sometimes. It just presents a series of visially appealing but fundamentally dumb clips. I envy…

>One of the boring and meaningless movies I ever seen. No arc, no coherent story, (almost) no humor, no development, no intrigue, nothing. I understand finding the movie too long or difficult to follow without historical context, or even just not feeling it. But if this is your conclusion after the last scene, you either didn't watch it or are being contrarian.

Yes I didn’t finish it. If only few scenes are worth watching it’s not a movie it’s a bunch of clips

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#94

Post by kranke155 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #85
kranke155 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Brazilian dictatorship did both. Just like the rest of Latin América they lost it all to high interest rates in the 70s and 80s. They lost so they quit.

You mean it first industrialized and then deindustrialized the country? Because if so, not really. Most of their industrializing policies had the opposite effect. What they really achieved was to reduce the industrialization pace to snail-speed, and then to turn it negative. On the first half, it was not for lack of trying, though. It was just for lack of competence.

You’re wrong and I can quote a number of economic histories to show so. The industrialisation push in Latin America was successful - to a degree. It followed the UN plans for developing a country under the Bretton Woods system. And it worked. But all that work was unwound by the Nixon shock and then the Volcker shock.

The only way to develop a major industrial economy under the Western system post 1945 seems to have been - be a reliable and essential US ally - be given privileges to survive the occasional systemic shock. “Kicking away The Ladder” and “How Asia Works” are good books about this.

That was true of Nixon-Volcker and it was true of 2008-COVID periods. The truth is that under the dollar monetary zone the rules are what they are, until they get changed. Those who survive relatively unscathed are generally given a permissive path to do so.

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#95

Post by jazzpush2 »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #80
greiskul wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The leg is used both as a urban legend that was told at the region at the time, but also as a metaphor. The surrealist scene where it shows the leg brutally attacking people at night: all the people attacked are prostitutes, gays, etc. People that during the dictatorship the police used to just dissappear, and society turned a blind eye to it. And it is meant to feel meandering cause that is how this period feels for…

That's perfectly nice idea but still doesn't make for a good movie. Making a good movie comes before a nice idea, if a movie is what you're making.

Your idea of a good movie, you mean to say.

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#96

Post by jazzpush2 »

aristofun wrote: post #93
lisdexan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One of the boring and meaningless movies I ever seen. No arc, no coherent story, (almost) no humor, no development, no intrigue, nothing. I understand finding the movie too long or difficult to follow without historical context, or even just not feeling it. But if this is your conclusion after the last scene, you either didn't watch it or are being contrarian.

Yes I didn’t finish it. If only few scenes are worth watching it’s not a movie it’s a bunch of clips

Ah, the classic paragraph of contrarian dismissal, followed by, "Well, actually, I didn't finish it, but..." - what short-form video content has done to our minds.

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#97

Post by jazzpush2 »

elzbardico wrote: post #69

It is a shame, but culturally Brazil can't let the 60's go. Americans may complain about their boomers, but American boomers can't handle a candle to the obstinate grip Brasilian boomers have on the brazilian imaginarium and culture. Imagine if every single hollywood movie done nowadays was kind of a pastiche of Antonioni's Blow Up, and if the Grateful Dead were the great gatekeepers of popular culture. Every single…

Better than Marvel film reworks.

Re: 'The Secret Agent': Exploring a Vibrant, yet Violent Brazil (2025)

#98

Post by Qem »

forinti wrote: post #47
knuppar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah suddenly perna cabeluda was cool but it did feel a bit random :p

I interpreted it as people making up stories so that they didn't have to face the truth. Or maybe the newspapers used it to write about things that couldn't be written.

The second option. The military dictatorship had an official censorship bureau in place. Proposed news articles had to be run through it before publishing. When some story was barred, it was usual for journal staff to fill its empty slot with something else, like poems, short stories, tall tales, et cetera, that obviously felt out of place. This way people were made aware something that should be there did not make it.
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