Eros

If it had been only Antonioni - and Fellini and Malle. But that hardly takes away from the film (except for its historical film firsts). It's fascinating how the socio-economic conditions of Brazil at the time allowed for the creation of cinema novo films like Barren Lives about the poverty of the agricultural northeast and Eros about the habitus of the urban elite of the capital city, whose class experience was not inferior to that of their Roman or Parisian counterparts. The film itself is a brilliant modernist study (predominantly featuring exteriors of modern buildings characteristic of the architectural style known as the "international style" in its post-war mass variant, which Antonioni had already used) of representatives of a social group. However, not of the callousness of capitalism stripped of basic means of livelihood and a dignified life as in the deserts of sertão, but on the contrary, by the same Latin American capitalism freed from any worries about basic needs - but about dignity (for that very reason?) coming anyway (this collective level of alienation of the elite was already captured by La Dolce vita). A game of falsehood, self-deception, poses, and characters objectified in the lifeless masks of their egos, just like the faces of stone statues. The other person as a mirror, one that is equally alluring because it reflects our narcissistic image, and terrifying because, at any moment, we could see ourselves entirely in it. It is a film that had its finger on the pulse of its time. (02/12/2015)