Retratos Fantasmas

First of all, I'm not a Kleber Mendonça Filho hater. I've watched his movies and even liked some of them like Aquarius and Bacurau. But boy is he overrated!

I have a theory: if you show someone one of his movies without telling them it's by him, they'll just think it's OK.

Here we see a guy talking about his life through photographs, edits, and a voiceover. He talks about Recife, his house and how things change. As another critic already pointed out here: Woah. Things change. Of course they do! But it's presented as some big artsy perspective.

Sure, he likes to criticize gentrification and real estate speculation but let's look at two follow-up scenes in the documentary about this:

First, the dog. Poor dog. "Oh, I recorded the sound of Nico for years. He was alone on weekends, that's why he was so loud." He was a dog! Of course he was going to bark and howl. Then he said, "I talked to the neighbors"-- and ok maybe my expectations were too high but I thought he was going to say something like "...and I offered to walk and play with the dog while they were out." Instead, I got this: "And they said every time it was a good sign -- it meant there weren't any robbers around while he was barking."

Then, the cats. Kleber says, "Oh, I like dogs and cats, but the cats p... me off." It looks like a cat colony. Of course feral cats will fight. But you're a rich director living next door -- what do you do to help the stray cats?

Nothing.

He put up wires and fences. And then he says he felt like he was in prison. Come on, man. What about animal rights?

There's even a sad scene of a cat walking through the wire.

Sorry to say, but if you don't link stray cats with poor animal policies, then you're part of the problem.

Anyway, rich people's perspective-spare your time.