"Baravelli, you have the brain of a four year old boy and I bet he was glad to get rid of it." -Groucho Marx, Horse Feathers (1932)
For some inexplicable reason, critics think this is a great movie. Sight & Sound magazine, according to Wikipedia, thought this was the third best movie in 2014.
I've seen the movie and I'm not sure what movie they thought they were watching.
There is no plot to the movie or even an explanation of where this is taking place. Is it in Venturas' mind? Is it a dream? Is he in a physical place (like a mental institution) and everything is occurring in a room? Pedro Costa makes zero effort to help the audience find a way into his story or even something that helps the audience understand.
As far as I can tell, Venturas is....somewhere. The movie has various people standing in front of him and details about them are explained (it's not established if they are dead or alive or what state Venturas is in at the start of the movie). Voices talk to him in some ASMR-esque way about a friend (relative?) who is dead that the person's wife spends quite a bit of time recalling about his death. Venturas says he's alive.
I almost feel like Pedro Costa was figuring out ways to exploit Venturas for his movie. Stand him in a room! Have him mumble words! Have other people stand near him and whisper their lines! Have him walk through areas and that appears 'symbolic'!
Towards the end of the movie Venturas stands in an elevator for at least 20 minutes with a guy in a soldier's uniform (who again there is no explanation other than Venturas says "he's a revolutionary soldier"). People talking offscreen while the camera is on the soldier (is he an avatar for them?).
Then Venturas just leaves the place after force feeding the presumably dead husband of a friend (relative?) soup.
Mystery Science Theater 3000, when talking about a different movie, said "You know, it's economical not to have a storyline, because then you can just film people saying things." They would likely say the same thing about Horse Money.
For some inexplicable reason, critics think this is a great movie. Sight & Sound magazine, according to Wikipedia, thought this was the third best movie in 2014.
I've seen the movie and I'm not sure what movie they thought they were watching.
There is no plot to the movie or even an explanation of where this is taking place. Is it in Venturas' mind? Is it a dream? Is he in a physical place (like a mental institution) and everything is occurring in a room? Pedro Costa makes zero effort to help the audience find a way into his story or even something that helps the audience understand.
As far as I can tell, Venturas is....somewhere. The movie has various people standing in front of him and details about them are explained (it's not established if they are dead or alive or what state Venturas is in at the start of the movie). Voices talk to him in some ASMR-esque way about a friend (relative?) who is dead that the person's wife spends quite a bit of time recalling about his death. Venturas says he's alive.
I almost feel like Pedro Costa was figuring out ways to exploit Venturas for his movie. Stand him in a room! Have him mumble words! Have other people stand near him and whisper their lines! Have him walk through areas and that appears 'symbolic'!
Towards the end of the movie Venturas stands in an elevator for at least 20 minutes with a guy in a soldier's uniform (who again there is no explanation other than Venturas says "he's a revolutionary soldier"). People talking offscreen while the camera is on the soldier (is he an avatar for them?).
Then Venturas just leaves the place after force feeding the presumably dead husband of a friend (relative?) soup.
Mystery Science Theater 3000, when talking about a different movie, said "You know, it's economical not to have a storyline, because then you can just film people saying things." They would likely say the same thing about Horse Money.