Review | Casa de Antiguidades – Applaudo Longa Nacional is a mixture of ‘Provisional Measure’ and ‘Bacurau’

When it premiered at festivals, still in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the sci-fi drama “Casa de Antiguidades” caused outcry, unease and fascination, as it wore a portrait of contemporary Brazil. with a look that is not romantic at all. The only Latin American film to receive the seal of the official selection of Cannes 2020, after a two-year hiatus between its first public screenings and today, the feature film finally arrives in Brazilian cinemas from July 21, for the delight of cult moviegoers.

Cristovam (Antonio Pitanga) is a former employee of a dairy company in southern Brazil. Virtually the only black man in the area, he suffers constant attacks on his body, home and property. One day, he is summoned to the office of director Shutzen (Soren Hellerup) for a disturbing announcement: the company is cutting expenses and informs him that, in order not to lay him off, they will reduce his salary, which will affect his retirement. . . Indignant, but resigned, Cristovam tries to continue his daily life, however, a movement begins to occur in the surroundings to launch a campaign of independence of the southern region of the country + São Paulo from the rest of the territory, despising the migrants from north and north-east who are already in the region. So, Cristovam will have to look for dual forms of survival…until he decides he’s had enough.

The director João Paulo Miranda Maria began his career in Rio Claro, inside São Paulo, and it was there that he awakened his gaze towards the population of the interior, displaced in the country, and their welcome in new workplaces. From this experience of observation, his scenario with Felipe Sholl heretical a protagonist in constant displacement – territorial and social – to portray the facet of a Brazil from inside the closet, the one who says well, God-fearing, defender of the precepts of family and heteronormative, but who, from inside the metaphorical closet, commits the greatest atrocities, reinforcing ideas of racial and social supremacy based on the illogical precepts of fictional regional superiority. It seems fiction, but there has already been a war in the country in favor of this independence.

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To build this semiotic impact, the director opposes two shocking techniques: strong scenes of animal violence and an intense interpretation of Antonio Pitanga, whose gaze and absence of words say more than any dialogue. Although with a sickly excess of the camera constantly starting from an open plan to slowly approach an object, the metaphor of ‘Casa de Antiguidades’ presents a Brazil that does not renounce colonial practices, even after the abolition of slavery.

Timeless and dystopian, ‘Casa de Antiguidades’ is an emotional mix of two great Brazilian hits, ‘Bacurau’ and ‘Medida Provisoria’, although it was not inspired by these works and with less action language, but more reflective and authorial. . It is a film that encourages the viewer to think about these fictional scenarios very close to reality. On the eve of the election period, it is an important film to reflect on the future we want for the country.

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