Me You Them Review
by "Harvey S. Karten" (film_critic AT compuserve DOT com)February 18th, 2001
ME YOU THEM (Eu, tu, eles)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten
Sony Pictures Classics/ Conspiracao Films
Director: Andrucha Waddington
Writer: Elena Soarez
Cast: Regina Cae, Lima Duarte, Stenio Garcia, Luis Carlos Vasconcelos, Nilda Spencer
In the unlikely event that any of the five million annual tourists to Rio make a side trip to the godforsaken town of Junco do Salitre in Brazil's Bahia region, they would discover a place as remote from the Cariocan paradise as Tierra del Fuego is from Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh Street. Even Margaret Mead might be bewildered by the setup of the family put under Breno Silveira's lens by "Me You Them" director Andrucha Waddington, but one thing seems clear: the impoverished folks who are the subject of this beautifully photographed, authentic-feeling indie are having more fun that the richniks sitting around the Olympic- size pool elegantly sipping tea and cucumber sandwiches at Rio's Palacio Hotel. Strikingly enough, the woman around whom men circulate as though she were the queen bee overseeing the next case of Golden Blossom honey has the guys by the you-know-what in what is supposed to be a macho culture.
The woman in question, Darlene--who is played by veteran Brazilian thesp Regina Case--looks more like an earth mother than like, say, Charlize Theron, but de gustibus...her features notwithstanding, her vivacity and sexual range entice a diverse segment of the Northeast village including the relatively rich Osias (Lima Duarte), whose claim to the Fortune 500 is that he owns the largest mud house in Junco de Salitre; Osias's cousin, Zezinho (Stenio Garcia), who is also getting on in years; and the well-built, youthful laborer Ciro (Luis Carlos Vesconcelos), whose arrival in town sparks the interest enjoyed by William Holden in Joshua Logan's movie "Picnic." Filling out the family is Osias's homely and cynical sister, Raquel (Nilda Spencer).
Because of the apparent absence of young men in the town, Darlene accepts the most unromantic proposal in recent movie memory from the aging and lazy Osias, who offers her a hammock in his spacious if not-Maurice-Valency- furnished flat centrally located in the middle of nowhere. The net, to him, is where he sleeps: not where he engages in chat-room activity. His principal amusement is listening to a battery-operated radio, his prize possession and the extent of high-tech in a location without electricity sans beds with springs or phones. Darlene soon entices Osias's unmarried, uncomplex cousin Zezinho into a liaison and places the offspring of their union side by side with the child constructed by Osias--with no apparent complaint from her husband. But when a handsome young worker, Ciro, enters the fold by taking a job cutting cane at a work station next to Darlene's, the inevitable connection provokes the envy not of Osias but of Zezinho. Do Darlene and Ciro get cast out by Osias--who had generously taken in both the young worker and cousin Zezinho to do his cooking, to shave him, and to carry lunch out to Darlene? The cuckhold's reaction to the whole proceeding forms the clever and humorous irony to this character-driven story, which is based on a true occurrence.
Waddington provides us with a valuable view into the lives of the "real people" of the large coffee-producing country; people who may never have seen a denizen of Rio much less a tourist from New York. The sepia-drenched photography captures the arid landscape that gives incongruous birth to the vivacious and anything-but-parched Darlene, whose love children provide striking contrast to the infertile land surrounding the extended family. When Waddington hones in on the makeshift dance hall to which the townies repair given the absence of movie theaters, you could almost swear that you're in some modern burb in the American West eavesdropping on the weekly hoedown. This is the other side of that great country, the perimeter not considered by Fina Torres' lush and sophisticated "Woman on Top," though Gilberto Gil's music recalls not only the picture that features Penelope Cruz but the recent documentary about Portugal's greatest fado singer, Amalia Rodrigues. "Me You Them" is a fitting entry by Brazil into the competition for the year 2000 Academy Awards.
Rated PG-13. Running time: 104 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, [email protected]
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