Case Studies Movie Reviews

"Me you them - Eu tu eles" follows the settings chosen by Walter Salles in his two masterpieces: the brazilian northeastern region, land of many natural beauties, but also a land of poverty, dryness, abandoned by local authorities and with a lifestyle that has not evolved in more than a hundred years. The main character is Darlene - Regina Casé; the movie tells her story, from being abandoned in her wedding to living with three men - Lima Duarte, Stenio Garcia and Luiz Vasconcelos - and four children in the same house.

For those of you who don't know them, Stenio Garcia and especially Lima Duarte are two of the foremost brazilian actors, with many natural acting resources, having played hundreds of different characters along their careers. Regina Casé is a funny woman with a solid comedy and hostess career. The casting is very good, and they portrait real situations in the screen with astonishing accuracy. The cinematography is very well researched and produced, and many international viewers - as well as brazilian ones, in fact - gasp in wonder at the sight of the dry and barren beauty of the settings.

But if you have seen this movie and think it's a light comedy about a promiscuous woman, you're completely wrong. This is a life-portrait about power, and what you can do to revert a low situation. Darlene cannot openly confront Osias, her first husband. He's powerful, old, respected, has a thundering voice and commands at will. She seduces Zezinho, Osias' cousin, and Ciro, the field-worker, not because she wants to have plain sex, but because that's the way she has to show everyone that, in the end, she will get what she wants, which is to have a good life. That's so true that when she leaves the house, Osias runs after her and tells her to go back.

So, to analyse this movie with such shallowness is, to say the least, temerary. This is not an action flick, it's a deep portrait of lives in a forgotten land, with touches of drama, comedy and love, such as life really is.

Grade 8.2/10

After watching Central Station and a couple other Brazilian movies, I wonder if poverty is a key ingredient in Brazilian cinema. However, these films are hardly exploitative and pity-inducing. This is especially true with 'Me, You and Them'. Poverty is a strong backdrop to this movie, however, the film does not allow it to overtake the overall tone of the film. Behind the poverty, there is a prevailing sense of life. The richness of life exists whether one is rich or poor. This film does well in presenting this aspect while telling an ordinary story about a life of ordinary woman in perhaps an extraordinary circumstance.

The movie does not employ fancy plotlines. There are not many peaks and valleys within the story and it is pretty consistent throughout. In fact, a person unwilling to take a peek at somebody else's life, as mundane as it might be, would probably fall asleep before the end of the first half of the film. In its simplicity, though, lies a beauty. Much of the beauty lies with the fact that the film is impartial and holds back its verdicts. Darlene's conduct might be seen as immoral, then again looking at her circumstances, couldn't it be justified? The film is unwilling to pass any judgments. Even the ending does not suggest much, avoiding the cause and effects type of storytelling.

The cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. Like every other aspect of the film, it doesn't seek for the grandeurs. As a result, there is a certain raw, stark quality to the images while still capturing the beauty of arid Brazil.

If you are a lover of international cinema, you do not want to miss this one. You might finish the movie none the wiser, however, you will definitely be 'cinematically richer'.

One aspect of the plot that is interesting, is Darlene the main character bears each man in her life a son, except for her legal husband. This has some fullfilling effect on these men. Her husband on the other hand, emasculated in a sense, in the end does what he can to preserve some vestige of his manhood and status.

I love movies that take me somewhere. This movie is beautifully shot, yielding many scenes of its stark beauty, but it by no means romanticizes. The setting is of a vast dry land. It is hot. They live in mud houses (Of course this appealed to me in look and practicality.). Everyone sleeps in hammocks.

The people, though very poor and unglamorous--to me this made them genuinely beautiful--have a rough life. Darlene, the main character must work, even when pregnant harvesting in the cane fields.