★★★★☆ Championed by the likes of Talking Head David Byrne, Beck and eccentric Welsh songsmith Gruff Rhys, the popularity of this influential wave of Brazilian music has been gaining momentum for a number of years. Interest has now been deemed sufficient enough to warrant the UK theatrical release of Marcelo Machado's insightful and engaging documentary, Tropicália (2012) (City of God director Fernando Meirelles is credited as one of its executive producers). A counterculture movement during the late 1960s, Tropicália was fuelled by the authoritarian regime imposed in Brazil at that time.
The movement produced a talented array of musicians who fused elements of the older established sounds of bossa nova and samba with Us West Coast psychedelic music and the jangly pop sounds of The Beatles. Using a similar approach to the recent Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane (2012), Tropicália is a patchwork of archive footage, stills and lo-fi collages, stitched together...
The movement produced a talented array of musicians who fused elements of the older established sounds of bossa nova and samba with Us West Coast psychedelic music and the jangly pop sounds of The Beatles. Using a similar approach to the recent Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane (2012), Tropicália is a patchwork of archive footage, stills and lo-fi collages, stitched together...
- 7/4/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Seen at the 8th Jecheon International Music & Film Festival (Jimff). Ah nostalgia, what a curious beast it is. This documentary whisked me back to my college days when I was an avid music collector with a rather eclectic set of tastes. One of my favorite discoveries was Brazilian music from the late 1960s and early 70s, particularly the genre known as Tropicalia. All my favorite artists of that period, including Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes and Tom Ze, feature prominently in this new documentary, which explores their revolutionary music and the impact it had on contemporaneous Brazilian society. Making a music documentary is no simple task. In one sense as a music documentarian you are very fortunate to have an array...
- 8/21/2012
- Screen Anarchy
Cinema Of Brazil: Music And Rhythm; Sound In Cinema – Music In Film: UK Portuguese Film Festival, London
One of the themes of this year's City Of London festival is the music of the Portuguese-speaking world, which is good news for cinemagoers, as these parallel festivals deliver more genres than you can shake a hip at. On the Brazilian side, there's the birth of bossa nova in the 1960s-set Os Desafinados, Crouching Tiger-style capoeira action in Besouro, or streetwise girl groups in São Paolo drama Antônia, plus documentaries on Tropicalia figureheads Arnaldo Baptista (of Os Mutantes) and Caetano Veloso, Wilson Simonal and Vinícius de Moraes. Representing Portugal, there's fado legend Amália Rodrigues in 1943's Fado, Story Of A Singer and Manuel de Oliveira's Buñuelesque Os Canibais.
Barbican Screen, EC2, Ritzy Picturehouse, SW2, Fri to 8 Jul, visit barbican.org.uk, picturehouses.co.uk
Steve Rose
Check The Gate: Hungarian Film Showcase,...
One of the themes of this year's City Of London festival is the music of the Portuguese-speaking world, which is good news for cinemagoers, as these parallel festivals deliver more genres than you can shake a hip at. On the Brazilian side, there's the birth of bossa nova in the 1960s-set Os Desafinados, Crouching Tiger-style capoeira action in Besouro, or streetwise girl groups in São Paolo drama Antônia, plus documentaries on Tropicalia figureheads Arnaldo Baptista (of Os Mutantes) and Caetano Veloso, Wilson Simonal and Vinícius de Moraes. Representing Portugal, there's fado legend Amália Rodrigues in 1943's Fado, Story Of A Singer and Manuel de Oliveira's Buñuelesque Os Canibais.
Barbican Screen, EC2, Ritzy Picturehouse, SW2, Fri to 8 Jul, visit barbican.org.uk, picturehouses.co.uk
Steve Rose
Check The Gate: Hungarian Film Showcase,...
- 6/18/2010
- by Steve Rose, Kathy Sweeney
- The Guardian - Film News
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