museumofdave
Brazil, 1910, and out of the stark, barren land, director Salles has brilliantly composed a visual poem in various shades of amber, ochre, and deep gold, the beauty of location composition often at odds with the stark story of revenge between families, a seemingly unending cycle of violent death unrelieved for peasant families.Moments of magic do happen, now and then, with visits from a traveling circus, from vivid pictures in a child's story book, from ascents into the skies from swings. The memorable faces of largely unknown actors will haunt you after the film ends; this is no film filled with special effects or easily-explained motivations, but a mythic tale with repercussive shocks; after one viewing with subtitles, one could turn them off and revel in the visuals, the music, and the strange, tragic finale.
gradyharp
The story in this film is simple: blood for blood feuding between two families in the backlands of Brazil. If left at that, this would be a conceptually boring movie, one done hundreds of times in various locations for varying Hollywood budgets. The glory of BEHIND THE SUN is in the presentation and transformation of a familiar precis into a visually stunning prolonged motion painting.Director Salles has assembled a cast of beautiful actors (especially Rodrigo Santoro!), minimized the Portuguese dialog so that the visuals may convey the text almost solo, and has added appropriations from other art forms to make this a memorable film. The only characters outside the feuding families are a traveling troupe of 'clowns' or a circus consisting of an older man and his sensuously beautiful stepdaughter. This nod to the "I PAGLIACCI" opera invests intrigue and introduces the concept of the redeeming force of love into this otherwise blighted life story of a young man doomed to die for family honor. The photography is elegant, the acting is superb, the musical scoring is sensitively appropriate without drawing attention to itself. This is a very beautiful, very fine film. Grady Harp
gaga75
Although the plot doesn't indend to do anything else, it could not move me at all. The story, in its essence, is about unbearable poverty and despair. But it's not told this way. Besides the bloodfeud and the poverty, it makes the impression of a rather picturesque life.Instead of focusing on the characters tragedys, instead of trying to make one feel the protagonist's hopeless situation, of making the lives' barreness tangible through corresponding photography, the film luxuriates in pompous, satiated and abundant pictures.Thus the movie never makes one really understand many things, e.g., why the protagonist isn't just going away, as he does anyway in the end, why the heads of the families insist on continuing the feud, why the fire eater girl returns, why she returns on her own, in the middle of the night, by foot, why she leaves ahd so on.Behind the sun hardly touches the surface, and tries to sell actually heavy stuff as pretty romantic drama in soft and colorful pictures -
WHICH MAKES ME PUKE
ulysis
This is a wonderful portrayal of human pride and stubbornness along with love and duty. Most of the people in the western world don't understand what's shown here. It's not about glorifying violence but in certain cultures honor is everything and people would rather die than be dis-honored.It shows the struggle between doing the right thing and doing the honorable thing. The struggle in Tonio between the duty and love. The "kid" Pacu steals the movie but the barren lands is just as much amazing as the movie itself. The cinematography adds just as much to the movie as the story. The same geography seen everyday seems so dreary but here it's so beautiful. All the characters are so helpless in their own situation and only two of them choose to break free. The girl and the kid. Yet they break everything apart what's holding the rest of them hostage.It's a must see movie if you are one of those people who yearn for knowing more of what lurks inside our own hearts.
AD
