Quanto Vale ou É por Quilo?

"Quanto vale ou é por quilo" shows us parallel and fragmentary stories about life in Brazil during slavery period (that ended at 1888) and also during recent times, when non-governmental organizations explore poverty in order to make money.

Unilateral, exaggerated, perhaps intentionally artificial, "Quanto vale..." do not have the well-dosed mix of comedy, irreverence and political denunciation that made "Cronicamente Inviável/Chronically Unfeasible" a cult movie in his country. It lacks rhythm, it lacks more and clearer links between the various stories throughout the movie -- that is too much fragmentary.

But is worthy seeing it. And if you are a Latin-American one MUST see it. Bianchi's unique capability of characterizing Brazilian society's bad habits makes his movies disturbing, electrical and very, very instructive. No one else in Brazil has his guts. His vision of Brazil may not be "the" truth, nor the only way to see that country and its society. His movies dares to show his opinion. But indeed they are yet the best portrait of the moral crisis that corrupts his nation from the "favelas" to the politicians in Brasilia.

Usually, there's a film in the Vancouver Film Festival that sets itself from the others for just being plain OUT THERE. This year's winner clearly goes to 'Quanto vale ou e por quilo?' for just having the guts to explore government corruption in the wild manner it sets itself to. Jumping from time period to time period, character to character, hell even film genre to film genre, the director, Marcelo Corpanni gets the job done in such an entertaining way. Heck, this even has a false ending, which is deeply hilarious. It's almost as if he was using genres of movie making as a metaphor to government corruption. What an interesting work!

The only thing that convinced me to see this movie was the fact that I've really enjoyed Sergio Bianchi's "Cronicamente Inviavel". Now days in Brazil it's pretty hard to find a movie that goes outside it's regular routines, such as showing disgrace, misery and poverty. This movie is no different from other recent Brazilian titles that try to deal with such a hard subject in the country. It is a sad true and it should be told but we're missing some great ideas that could be perhaps great movies. It must be brought out that here in South America, Brazil is not even close of doing what it could for the film industry, we have great sources and probably marvelous "wanna-be film makers" that are cast aside because of our bureaucracy, but that is for another discussion. The screen writing is what makes this one special. It compares the way it used to be to the way it is(with great connections and, as said, a great writing work), showing that despite much, things haven't changed at all in some ways; also a great research that the writers did, with a lot of historical facts to the viewer and it still manages to surprise and catch our attention. The direction of the movie is not bad (nor great) and one must look aside to some bad acting sequences, but looking to the movie itself, and the message it's trying to send it's a very good picture and a different way of showing "Brazil" in the screen, even following previous routines. It's a good movie and a must-see when it comes to comparing to recent Brazilian films that are "two-hour soap operas". Forget much technical details and go with the script on this flick.

Maybe we should learn a little bit with our "hermanos" Argentinians(in my opinion the greatest film industry in South America now days).

Through this movie we manage to see, in the raw and sincere form, all the sore spots that help to compose the current Brazilian view of our stated society. The best itinerary and great acting help to give to the movie more realism, making it nearer of us, it does so that we feel sad and bothered. It shows that we need to know more the country in which we cheer and which the contact with other, it is he of any social class, it is necessary so that we become more human and more conscious of our situation like Brazilians.

The director got, with his intriguing history and using of extremely valid flashbacks resulting from the history, like still we live in a late and selfish time.

A great Brazilian movie that needs to be more accepted and spread!