![]() The film loses momentum in the (overlong) third part, as now grown-up Guiga fails to cope with the heavy political repression, the death of his beloved mother and some kind of sexual shortcoming that isn't quite clear (probably sterility), becoming increasingly erratic and emotionally unstable. Navarro uses Brazilian political history as Guiga's background - the democratic, hopeful, confident atmosphere of late 1950s the trauma of the military coup in the 1960s culminating in the violent, repressive 1970s, the "lead years", when imprisonment, torture and murder were a permanent and very real threat for students, intellectuals, artists and political activists. Born into a Catholic middle-class family with a strict father, an oppressed but loving mother, a bunch of siblings and a golden-hearted housemaid, Guiga's offbeat behavior in his early childhood makes the best part of the film: a candid and very funny account of early sexuality (including masturbation scenes that may startle people who pretend Freud never existed and believe children are asexual) and the delights and pains of growing up. We follow Guiga from about 5 to 20-something years of age, living in (then still) provincial Salvador (capital of the state of Bahia) from the 1950s up to the 1970s. ![]() ![]() Like Fellini and Kusturica, Navarro makes great use of music, wacko characters and sense of humor to create a magical, dreamlike piece of nostalgia, overcoming his tiny budget and making one of the year's most endearing, personal and lyrical films. Navarro shows his alter-ego Guiga going through funny/startled/clumsy/painful discoveries on sex, religion (Catholic guilt is all important here), death, love, politics, drugs and art, and above all his relationship with his flamboyant family. There are also paraphrases of other Fellini films ("Otto e Mezzo", "I Vitelloni", ".E La Nave Va") and Kusturica ("When Father Was Away on Business", "Underground") in Edgar Navarro's award-winning feature début at 56 (!!), which uses autobiographical memoirs/dreams of his childhood, adolescence and youth. ![]() "Eu Me Lembro" means "I Remember" in Portuguese, a title which recalls, of course, Fellini's "Amarcord". ![]()
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