A FOREIGN LAND
A film review by James Berardinelli
Copyright 1996 James Berardinelli
RATING (0 TO 10): 7.0 Alternative Scale: *** out of ****
Brazil/Portugal, 1995 Running Length: 1:40 MPAA Classification: No MPAA Rating (Violence, profanity, sex, nudity) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Shown at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema, 5/2/96 and 5/4/96
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernando Alves Pinto, Laura Cardoso, Luis Melo, Alexandre Borges, Joao Lagarto, Tcheky Karyo Directors: Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas Screenplay: Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas Cinematography: Walter Carvalho Music: Jose Miguel Wisnik In Portugese and Spanish with subtitles
A FOREIGN LAND, which catapults its characters from Brazil to Portugal, is a black-and-white thriller that recalls Brazil's Cinema Nuovo. Using various requisite elements of traditional film noir in an atypical setting -- the femme fatale, the heroic-but-clueless hero, the stolen goods, and the cold-hearted villains, this movie is more engrossing than it perhaps has a right to be. There's nothing especially magical or momentous about A FOREIGN LAND, but, after a shaky setup, it manages to grip an audience for the balance of its running length.
The film opens with parallel stories. It's 1990, and Brazil's newly-elected president, Fernando Collor, has frozen all personal savings accounts. Young Brazilians, fearing a bleak economic future, leave the country in droves. Amongst them is Alex (Fernanda Torres), who would rather eke out an existence as a waitress in Portugal than remain in Sao Paolo. Meanwhile, back in Brazil, Paco (Fernando Alves Pinto) dreams of traveling abroad, and, when his mother drops dead of shock after learning that the government has confiscated her life's savings, Paco no longer has anything holding him at home. Accepting a "delivery job" from a shady "businessman", Paco is off to Lisbon. When things go wrong, Paco and Alex are thrown together, and end up on the run with a violin full of uncut diamonds and an underworld honcho (Tcheky Karyo) on their trail.
Much of the first half of A FOREIGN LAND is slow and disjointed. The setup, which basically comprises everything leading up to Alex and Paco's first meeting, seemingly takes forever. We get to know the characters, but wonder if anything interesting is ever going to happen. During this part of the film, there's also a painfully obvious plot device that has one of the characters selling a passport. Once the movie reaches its narrative meat, however, it quickly becomes involving and suspenseful. Aided by stark black-and-white cinematography and crisp dialogue, the second half of A FOREIGN LAND is about as good as modern film noir gets.
The political background and international settings are what differentiate A FOREIGN LAND from most other low-budget thrillers. The usage of Sao Paolo and Lisbon as locations is a lot fresher than, say, New York and London. The result is that, while A FOREIGN LAND doesn't strike out in any amazingly new directions, it adds enough unique dashes to a familiar genre to captivate an audience.
- James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@bc.cybernex.net web: http://www.cybernex.net/~berardin
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