January 25, 2024
FILM: PICTURES OF GHOSTS
DIRECTED BY: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO
STARRING: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO, ALEXANDRE MOURA, RUBEN SANTOS
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Pictures of Ghosts is a loving and melancholic tribute to the home and cinemas frequented by famed Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho. If you’re not familiar with his work, well, Neighboring Sounds was a big festival hit in 2012 and Aquarius made my Top Ten Films list of 2016. Still not convinced he’s worth exploring? His new film Pictures of Ghosts exposes his hometown that has been featured so prominently in his works. What intrigues me most about this particular film is that Filho has always kept a close watch over his hometown. In particular, he focuses on the home that he featured in Neighboring Sounds that has already gone through a major transformation in the decade since the film was made. Essentially what was once his town and cinema are now relics, which previously attracted stars such as Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis back in the day but now has been mostly abandoned and full of decay.
Full disclosure: I’m fascinated by the rise and fall of buildings, homes, and towns. So this film might intrigue me more than the average viewer. Filho’s childhood home is the first character in the documentary. He explores how it was featured in Neighboring Sounds but then how its “ghost” has remained. In particular, a now deceased dog from that film and neighborhood haunts the area with its barking and howling. Has he haunted the setting or are Filho’s memories so strong that they transcend time and space and still remain within his psychological perspective?
It’s interesting to see how this town, Recife, was once a bustling setting which also was connected to Hitler in the early 20th Century. Of course, that’s not exactly what Filho remembers for he recorded many videos back in the 1990s which characterized the town as a place of wonder and escape. The particular theatre he illustrates is the Art Palacio which at one time supposedly had offices for all the major Hollywood studios. Filho provides footages of screenings and marquees from back in the day. Now all he finds is a transformed neighborhood full of high rises and buildings ready for demolition.
The lure of this film is cinema and the past. The film will entrance anyone who has ever looked back on their childhood neighborhoods and wondered how they evolved. Because Filho is a filmmaker who has been recording much of his life and surroundings for decades, it is particularly bittersweet to see how much has changed in his world. The town of Recife represents any town that has fallen on hard times and that means so much to the people who once inhabited it. It’s a beloved character in and of itself.
Similarly, the theatre is also a character here. At one time it represented the ultimate in glamour and star power entering the town and now it is simply a shell of its former self. Does this make the film overly maudlin and not worth seeing? Certainly not! This is a very beautiful homage to a place that was a church to at least one filmmaker (which ironically it once was the setting for and then became again a place for local Evangelicals after the theatre closed.) In some ways this film reminisces quite fondly like the remembered town and movie theatre in the classic Italian Oscar-winning film, Cinema Paradiso, also an homage to a time and place now part of history.
Pictures of Ghosts isn’t for everyone but it is worth seeing for those who can look back at the past, remember its virtues, and keep the memories filed away happily inside their minds.
Picture of Ghosts played as part of the Chicago International Film Festival this past Fall. It begins screening this week in limited release including the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago.
FILM: PICTURES OF GHOSTS
DIRECTED BY: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO
STARRING: KLEBER MENDONCA FILHO, ALEXANDRE MOURA, RUBEN SANTOS
RATING: 3 ½ out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
Pictures of Ghosts is a loving and melancholic tribute to the home and cinemas frequented by famed Brazilian director Kleber Mendonca Filho. If you’re not familiar with his work, well, Neighboring Sounds was a big festival hit in 2012 and Aquarius made my Top Ten Films list of 2016. Still not convinced he’s worth exploring? His new film Pictures of Ghosts exposes his hometown that has been featured so prominently in his works. What intrigues me most about this particular film is that Filho has always kept a close watch over his hometown. In particular, he focuses on the home that he featured in Neighboring Sounds that has already gone through a major transformation in the decade since the film was made. Essentially what was once his town and cinema are now relics, which previously attracted stars such as Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis back in the day but now has been mostly abandoned and full of decay.
Full disclosure: I’m fascinated by the rise and fall of buildings, homes, and towns. So this film might intrigue me more than the average viewer. Filho’s childhood home is the first character in the documentary. He explores how it was featured in Neighboring Sounds but then how its “ghost” has remained. In particular, a now deceased dog from that film and neighborhood haunts the area with its barking and howling. Has he haunted the setting or are Filho’s memories so strong that they transcend time and space and still remain within his psychological perspective?
It’s interesting to see how this town, Recife, was once a bustling setting which also was connected to Hitler in the early 20th Century. Of course, that’s not exactly what Filho remembers for he recorded many videos back in the 1990s which characterized the town as a place of wonder and escape. The particular theatre he illustrates is the Art Palacio which at one time supposedly had offices for all the major Hollywood studios. Filho provides footages of screenings and marquees from back in the day. Now all he finds is a transformed neighborhood full of high rises and buildings ready for demolition.
The lure of this film is cinema and the past. The film will entrance anyone who has ever looked back on their childhood neighborhoods and wondered how they evolved. Because Filho is a filmmaker who has been recording much of his life and surroundings for decades, it is particularly bittersweet to see how much has changed in his world. The town of Recife represents any town that has fallen on hard times and that means so much to the people who once inhabited it. It’s a beloved character in and of itself.
Similarly, the theatre is also a character here. At one time it represented the ultimate in glamour and star power entering the town and now it is simply a shell of its former self. Does this make the film overly maudlin and not worth seeing? Certainly not! This is a very beautiful homage to a place that was a church to at least one filmmaker (which ironically it once was the setting for and then became again a place for local Evangelicals after the theatre closed.) In some ways this film reminisces quite fondly like the remembered town and movie theatre in the classic Italian Oscar-winning film, Cinema Paradiso, also an homage to a time and place now part of history.
Pictures of Ghosts isn’t for everyone but it is worth seeing for those who can look back at the past, remember its virtues, and keep the memories filed away happily inside their minds.
Picture of Ghosts played as part of the Chicago International Film Festival this past Fall. It begins screening this week in limited release including the Gene Siskel Center in Chicago.