Que Horas ela volta? / The Second Mother by Anna Muylaert

I think it's too late to see it in theatres, but maybe it'll be available on DVD soon, this film really blew me away. I saw it a few nights ago at Cinema du Parc and I do have to admit, that I have a particular fondness for Brazil films. I don't know why exactly since I've never been to Brazil nor do I speak Portuguese (I also like Brazilian writers), but I suppose it has to do with the vast differences between a country like Brazil and Canada (the heat, the chaos of it, the warmth of the people).

This film tells the story of a wealthy family and their maid, Val, in Sao Paolo and what happens when the maid's daughter, Jessica, comes from the north to stay with her mother before she takes the entrance exams at university.

The contrasts of class are stark and it takes the daughter's presence to make them apparent: her mother is outraged that Jessica refuses to know her place as the maid's daughter, in this kind of class limbo-land, asking to sleep in the guest room, letting the teenagers drag her into the pool. The wealthy wife, too, recognizes the class distinctions and wants to maintain them but she also sees the fact that her husband is very attracted to Val's young beautiful and very intelligent daughter. A complicated arrangement results and is even further complicated by the relationship between Jessica and the teenaged son of the family.

The film exposes the lie that domestic servants are "part of the family" as they aren't, really, and it takes someone shaking up the strict protocol that is so present in this kind of relationship for everyone to feel ruffled, uncomfortable, out of sorts. Oddly, it's the men in the family who don't seem to be so affected by the class rifts, but there's also sexual attraction there to circumvent those distinctions. Sex trumps all.

It's a really lovely film, full of sensuality and pain, but also hopeful, ending in the way we all hope it ends. I somehow managed to miss the entire Montreal Brazil Film Festival this year (where was I?!) which is unfortunate because last year I saw an incredible Brazilian film there (based on a Stefan Zweig short story). Here's to hoping that Cinema du Parc will continue to show Brazilian films.

On a related note, very sad to see that Cinema Excentris has closed. Apparently it's a temporary closure but we need more repertory cinemas in this city. There's no shortage of film festivals but it's so important to have cinemas that are devoted to less huge films, and more art-house or foreign films. It's sad to see how the film world has become so concentrated on huge blockbusters and there is so little room left for other kinds of film.

But that's a topic for another day.

Dante's Inferno Lego-style, On Being consumers, Buster Keaton the master of the visual gag, Books as subway passes: Random Morning Links

The Inferno: Not quite as powerful when conveyed Lego-style

• Interesting article in The Guardian about how we're given conflicting information about our role as consumers, both being asked to buy more and consume less. And it is true that we live in a complicated world where it's impossible not to consume. Yet there are people who consume far too much (too much useless junk, too much plastic crap that stays in cupboards 99.9% of the time). I am no anti-materialist though people come to our place often throw around the world "minimalist" which I find odd because I feel like we're surrounded with stuff. Mainly it's books and clothes that fill our closets. I just hate having to clean and the less stuff, the easier that whole process is...
• Artist re-creates Dante's Inferno with Legos. I read The Inferno again a few weeks ago and was surprised at how moving and terrifying certain passages are. The Lego as building block suggests a certain kind of levity so it's hard to capture that terror but these creations certainly are creative.
• This is great: film commentator Tony Zhou talks about why Buster Keaton was such a master of his craft in this short, really funny film.
• I love this idea: in order to encourage reading, commuters riding the metro in Sao Paolo can buy books that are also subway tickets. Brazilians read, on average, two books a year (I wonder what the average is in Canada), so by doubling as a ticket, the thinking goes, people will buy their ticket along with something useful to do while riding. I love the design generally, whether they are tickets or not. Nice-looking books.

Subway pass books: I'd buy them just for the design

Brazilian Film Fest starts this Friday! Stefan Zweig film adaptation one major highlight

I love film fests and Montreal has so many unusual and interesting ones to be proud of. Sure, our film festivals aren't Toronto's: we don't have Nicole Kidman or Channing Tatum walking the red carpet. We don't have photographers snapping photos or $300,000 cocktail parties.

But Montreal's not that kind of town. And this makes me proud, actually: we're not about Hollywood glamour or red carpets. We're not about simply spending a certain amount of money to make something "good." We're about interesting, creative programming for intelligent sophisticated art lovers. We should embrace this fact about our city.

I've been probably every year to see something at the Brazilian Film Fest since its inception, and every year I've seen something to knock my socks off. One film that I am really looking forward to this year is "The Invisible Collection," based on a Stefan Zweig short story.

The short story is set in post-WWI Europe when a young man, financially ruined by the war, sets out to find some art that an elderly aristocratic man has in his country estate. By touring the countryside at this pivotal moment in history, Zweig shows us the huge disparities between classes in Europe at this time and in hindsight, we can see all the signs of the looming bitterness that eventually leads to WWII.

Brazilian Bernard Attal's film version is set in contemporary Brazil and again considers the inequality that is rife in Brazilian society with the same rough storyline: Beto, whose family antique store has fallen on hard times, travels to the countryside in search of rare drawings that will change his future.

Though Zweig didn't set his story in Brazil, he was connected to Brazil at the end of his life, fleeing with his wife from the Nazis ascension to power, and settling in a small city just north of Rio. He has a huge reputation in Brazil and a museum has been made at the site of his former home. It was there, in 1942, that he and his wife committed suicide, despairing at the rise of Nazi Germany and pessimistic about the future of humanity.

The final period of Stefan Zweig's life was beautifully captured in a best-selling book by Laurent Seksik, Les dernieres jours de Stefan Zweig (this piece was itself adapted into a hugely successful French play in Paris) and then made into a gorgeous graphic novel (with some of the most beautiful illustrations I've seen in recent graphic novels) with Seksik and the French artist Guillaume Sorel.

The film as part of the Festival du film Bresilien plays on Monday, December 1 at 5pm and then again on Thursday, December 4 at 7pm. Tickets here.

A lot of excellent stuff worth seeing this year including a documentary about the hugely successful film City of God, called City of God - 10 Years Later. The film looks at the actors and others associated with the 2002 film to explore how their lives have changed after the international phenomenon that the film created. This weekend they play The Way He Looks, Elena, and Meeting Sebastião Salgado (about the Brazilian photographer).

Check out the entire schedule on their website and be sure to like their Facebook page for updates.