And the new retrospective of Brazilian contemporary film, cinematography of the country of beautiful women, top football, samba and carnival, offers the viewers who are tired of Hollywood blockbusters and adaptations of comics about superheroes several successful titles worth every attention



Perhaps the most famous name in this retrospective, again composed of a series of benign escapist titles intended for a wider audience, is the one of the 77-year-old hit maker Daniel Filho, an author who has recently presented himself with the unpretentious and causal fantastic romantic comedy If I were You. The filmmaker who is on film and TV a relentless producer (City of God) by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund), a screenwriter, a director (Times of Peace) and an actor, presented himself to us this time with If I were You 2, the sequel of the mentioned hit film from 2009, and with a romantic humorous drama with feminist undertones The Inheritance from 2001. The viewers who liked the fresh, imaginative and playful story about the hot-tempered middle-aged husband and wife Helena and Cláudio, who are always ready to fight, and end up switching bodies so that during three days in the body of one another they would understand the problems in their relationship and additionally strengthen their love, will most surely find plenty of intriguing details in the equally charming, dynamic and fun sequel. The author is inventive in proportionally varying the plot on the body switch which has been used in Hollywood films in the last three and a half decades in around 15 titles, from Gary Nelson's Freaky Friday in 1977 and its second adaptation starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in 2003, other more or less successful hits such as Like Father Like Son by Rod Daniel, Penny Marshall's Big and Paula Flaherty's 18 Again!, and famous films Prelude to a Kiss by Norman René, 13 Going on 30 by Gary Winick and 17 Again by Burr Steers. In the predominantly commercially oriented project, Filho emphasises the witty toying with sexual and gender conventions and stereotypes on gender relations, enriched with hints of screwball, yet again relying on energetic and playful acting performances of his frequent associates Glória Pires and Tony Ramos, who this time, with all the troubles caused by the rash decision to get divorced, also face the discovery that their young daughter Bia is pregnant.

Glória Pires also plays the main role Filho's film The Inheritance, an adaptation of a popular novel and theatre play by Miguel Falabella, a story about four sisters who meet after their mother's death to sell her apartment and split the inheritance. Pires plays the conservative Selma, trapped in a loveless marriage with a rough soldier, tortured by the fact that their 15-year-old daughter is pregnant. While she sincerely grieves after her mother and doesn't want to part with certain memories, her sisters, Parisian Lúcia (Lília Cabral), burdened with the problematic relationship with her son, lesbian Laura (Paloma Duarte), planning to move to Germany, and decisive Regina (Andrea Beltrão), jumping from one superficial relationship to another, just want to get their parts of the inheritance as soon as possible. While they are together, everything they resent each other and hide from each other will come out into the open, and the image of an extended dysfunctional family is constructed by the authors as a nostalgic character study of women who have to come to terms with their own insecurities, possessiveness, fickleness and similar personality traits, using the romantic subplots mostly as balance.

Those who saw the outstanding actor Wagner Moura in two sequels of the film Elite Squad by José Padilha and in the very important supporting role in Elysium by Neill Blomkamp, might be quite surprised by the actor's performance in the fantastic comedy The Man from the Future written and directed by Cláudio Torres. Unlike the tough and rough characters he played in previous films, Moura is in this film a confused and clumsy scientist who because of a humiliation during his days as a student acquired the nickname Zero. He is an exceptionally talented physicist in constant financial problems who, together with his partner Ricardo, while trying to create a new and perfected energy source, accidently makes a time travelling machine. Realizing that, Zero decides to travel back into the past, on November 22, 1991, the night he was humiliated, got his nickname, and was left by the attractive Helena (Alinne Moraes), the never forgotten love of his life. Cláudio Torres relatively cleverly varies the general plot of similar films, obviously influenced by the famous trilogy Back to the Future by Robert Zemeckis, creating a dynamic and fun story with a message on how our lives and destinies must be as they are, because any changes would be pointless and may lead to unwanted and even tragic consequences.

Made in 2003, the romantic comedy Cristina Wants to Get Married directed by Luiz Villaça is a benign story defined in genre about the kind-hearted Cristina (Denise Fraga), a young woman approaching her middle-age who grew up with her loving mother in very modest circumstances, and who believes that finding the right man to marry over the agency run by the handsome Chico (Marco Ricca) could solve almost all her problems in life. While she relentlessly and optimistically searches for "the one", who might be hiding in the compassionate Paulo (Fábio Assunção), she becomes more aware of the feelings existing between her and Chico, just as he is. Finally, the romantic comedy drama In Therapy written by Marcel Saback and directed by José Alvarenga Jr. in 2009, partly based on the book by Martha Medeiros is a piece that the directed developed into a hit TV series two years later also starring Lília Cabral (The Inheritance) in the lead role. She plays Mercedes, a 40-something year old woman from Rio de Janeiro speaking about her life to a psychoanalyst, from her childhood, when she lost her mother, to the divorce from her husband Gustavo (José Mayer) and her love affairs with s Theo (Reynaldo Gianecchini) and other men, always supported by her best friend Mônica (Alexandra Richter). The film occasionally flirts with slapstick is intelligently designed and offers life situations and dialogues. (Josip Grozdanić)