O tempo e o vento dir. by Jayme Monjardim

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Hispania, Volume 98, Number 3, September 2015, pp. 633-634 (Review)

3XEOLVKHGE\-RKQV+RSNLQV8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/hpn.2015.0106

For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hpn/summary/v098/98.3.brigidi.html

Access provided by Quest University Canada (27 Feb 2016 17:55 GMT)

Reviews 

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In a tender moment toward the end of the film, Antonio asks Ultima for her blessing. She reaches over to touch him and says: “In the name of all that is strong, and good, and beautiful, I bless you.” True to his word, Antonio remains faithful to his promise to Ultima to take care of her and keep her alive, even if it’s just her memory. In fact, it is the adult narrative voice of Antonio (Alfred Molina) years later that is telling this story with careful detail. The behind-the-scenes action responsible to produce Bless Me, Ultima and the quality and success of the film prove several things. First, that the reluctance by Hollywood to produce films centered on Hispanic life has created a blatant chasm of such work, especially films about Mexican Americans. Second, it confirms that films about the US Hispanic experience can be a commercial and artistic success. Last, it proves that the pool of talented Hispanic actors is deep and that we should make more films that tell the stories of these people. It is not often that filmgoers get to read so many Hispanic surnames of actors and crewmembers as the credits roll across the screen. Bless me, Ultima is proof that they exist and that they are talented and capable of making quality films worthy of watching. Bless Me, Ultima, it turns out, has been a blessing to all of us. The film, like the novel, is strong, good, and beautiful. It is, as Ultima would say, good medicine. Spencer Herrera New Mexico State University Monjardim, Jayme, dir. O tempo e o vento. Downtown, 2013, Film. O tempo e o vento, authored by the brilliant Érico Veríssimo, is a classic of Brazilian historical literature. Its cinematic adaptation is at once ambitious and risky, and to this end, director Jayme Monjardim does a marvelous job of bringing this epic novel to the big screen. The movie, produced and released in 2013 (and presented with English subtitles as Time and the Wind), poetically depicts the beauty of the southern Brazilian pampas landscape and its cultural symbols. But it leaves out an important representational component: its people. For instance, while the three parts of the novel each introduce unique historical topics related to southern Brazil, the movie is narrated through the perspective of only one major character. If the novel is narrated by the time and the wind, the movie is told through the memories of only Bibiana Terra. The novel takes place in Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil, and spans the colonial period to the early twentieth century. But the movie focuses on the colonial period through the late nineteenth century. It tells of how two rival families in the small city of Santa Fé, the Amarals and the Terra-Cambarás, vie for power and influence. The title of the book, O tempo e o vento, uses the time and the wind metaphorically as important characters in the story. The time and the wind narrate the story poetically, providing the reader with the sensation of the long duration of everyday lives, in which there are instants of unexpected changes as sudden as the wind. The movie, however, lacks this element due to its superficial characters. Sadly, this aspect makes it hard for the audience to empathize with the people of Rio Grande do Sul, who constitute the soul of Veríssimo’s literary masterpiece. In the novel, characters such as Capitão Rodrigo and Ana Terra are symbols of dominance, charisma, and controversial attitudes, adjectives nowhere to be found in the motion picture version. Like the book, the movie is faithful to the region’s historical background, addressing the most important topics for understanding southern Brazil’s history from the colonial period up to the nineteenth century. The movie touches on the defining roles of themes like the Brazilian frontier and violent intercultural tensions with the Spaniards. The movie also addresses complex Brazilian race relations that derive from a formation of a mixed-blood society. One example is the story of Pedro Missioneiro, an Indian born and raised in the Jesuit missions who witnesses the struggles of the rebel Indian Sepé Tiarajú, who leaves after the Iberian crowns partially destroyed the people of the missions. Pedro meets Ana Terra and her family from São Paulo, who relocated

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in the Rio Grande of São Pedro after trading with the Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. Together, they initiate the Terra family’s trajectory by giving birth to their son Pedro Terra. Aesthetically speaking, the movie does a great job recreating a strong sense of cultural tradition throughout. For example, its folkloric songs and dances point to the customs and habits of Rio Grande do Sul. Thus symbols, and at times, even details such as the strong gaucho accent are faithfully reproduced. Nonetheless, the experienced soap opera director Monjardim makes use of close-ups too often, and, in so doing, he leads our attention to the weakest points of the movie: its lack of strong characters. Although the cast is composed of a great group of artists, the script narrowed their possibilities. The cinematographic identity of the movie is a rather local one, and it overshadows the essence of the story, which is in its characters. While cinema is a universal experience, Monjardim restricts its visual language to a local and national audience revealed by his aesthetic choices. The director often uses the epic soundtrack to make transitions between the family generations, making the movie a mannerist work piece, and its characters more anecdotal than natural and authentic. The soundtrack and the close-ups ultimately take over the movie and overshadow its characters, problematically shaping the final result of this adaptation. O tempo e o vento is a complex story mainly because it addresses a multitude of topics and themes typical in the modernist literary trend: the conflicted nature of the human being. But the movie ultimately fails to explore this essential component of Veríssimo’s books. In the novel, the characters cannot all be considered role models, not even main characters like the hero Capitão Rodrigo Cambará who married Bibiana Terra (Ana Terra’s granddaughter), and whose influence shaped a whole generation of Brazilians named after him. In the movie, there is no time to form any judgment about the characters because this engagement is taken away from the viewer. For example, while Veríssimo places Ana Terra as the center of his story for her strength, Monjardim depicts her as a sensual survivor. The author focuses on Ana as an essential character in the family’s story, but the director depicted her as surprisingly passive. Overall, O tempo e o vento is an excellent source of entertainment, especially for the classroom. University students of Latin American and Iberian Studies could still benefit from viewing the movie if they were made aware of the limitations of this adaptation. After all, critical reading of the material should be extended to critical viewing of cinema. In conclusion, I recommend this movie for the classroom only as a companion to Veríssimo’s great novel. Bianca Brigidi Quest University Canada Padrón, Ian, dir. Habanastation. Global, 2011. Film. Habanastation (2011) del director Ian Padrón es una historia, como muchas otras películas sobre La Habana, que recrea las desigualdades socioeconómicas en la isla caribeña, pero que sobresale del resto, por presentar la mirada adolescente de dos chicos de distintos estratos sociales—alto y bajo—mediante una amistad donde se sobreponen los valores humanos y la solidaridad por encima del poder adquisitivo de las personas. La acción de Habanastation transcurre principalmente en dos zonas de La Habana en el año 2011. La señora Moraima (Blanca Rosa Blanco), su esposo Pepe Arlay (Luis Alberto García) y el hijo de ambos, Mario, conocido como Mayito (Ernesto Escalona), viven en Miramar, una de las principales zonas residenciales de la capital. Al lado opuesto, se encuentra el barrio de ficción La Tinta. Recreado al oeste de la ciudad en el barrio Zamora, este lugar representa una zona peligrosa de bajo nivel económico. Aquí vive Carlos Roque (Andy Fornaris) con su abuela, después de la muerte de su madre y del encierro penal de su padre. Carlos es un adolescente y compañero de clase de Mario. El uso y contraposición de estas dos zonas es una crítica y denuncia contra el fracaso del modelo económico en Cuba. En la película ambas zonas se entremezclan—