Rio das Mortes

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isla s This is a quirky, arty film with a real sense of 'the grass is greener on the other side' about it. It focusses on two people seemingly desperate to believe a better life and circumstances can be found by up rooting themselves from Germany to Peru, regardless of it's shaky economic footing and other practicalities. I did find myself feeling sorry for them, it has to be said. I can relate to having faith and hoping/dreaming of starting a new life elsewhere, even though that is very unlikely to happen. Who doesn't feel enthusiastic at the idea of uprooting themselves, especially if there's a chance of finding treasure or riches of any form?. This film has a real 70s vibe or style to it - it being a TV film dating from 1971 explains that, obviously. The film is quite slow moving plot wise and there isn't much in the way of character development, so it may bore some people but its a pretty laid back and somehow relaxing even watch maybe. Not entirely good or bad, I wouldn't especially recommend this as such, no. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member The most boring film about hunting for treasure that I've ever seen Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member Another Masterpiece of Rainer Werner Fassbinder with the beautiful Hanna Schyguala and Günter Kaufmann its totally hillarious when they plan to fly to Peru i wish the Movie where 2 Hours longer and their Vacation to Peru was shown too Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member After the heavy-handed Brechtian devices of a number of his early films, Fassbinder really begins to get going in this made-for-TV piece about a couple of working class men who share a boyhood dream to search for treasure in Rio das Mortes in Peru. The dream they share is a typical storytelling "call to adventure" and the film delineates their deadbeat and usually hopeless attempts to raise the money for the venture - their economic situation is too hopeless for them to save, selling their possessions and cashing in their inheritances doesn't add up to much and attempts to finance the trip as a business venture and a research expedition fail due to their hopeless inabilities. But luck arrives in the form of a widow with more money than sense, who stumps up the finance and so off they go. What we've seen of them doesn't inspire much hope for their adventure... All the while, their male story is ironically counterpointed with the hopes, dreams and aspirations of the live-in girlfriend of one of the men, played by the extraordinary Hanna Schygulla. She goes to college and takes part in a feminist theatre-piece (the conclusion of which is "women's own behaviour is the best evidence of their oppression") but learns little, as she dreams of placating her nagging mother by marrying and having lots of kids. All of that is made nonsense of by the dream-journey of the men, which she almost kiboshes by nearly shooting them at the end, a quirk of fate saving them. Fassbinder, to my mind for the first time successfully, moulds his early obsession with the homo-social exclusion of the female in male friendships into a contemporary melodrama of some verve and wit. His story, a classic "quest myth", is ironically set in a society seething with casual misogyny, violence, class contempt, economic want and ignorance. Gritty realism is used to undermine the high-falutin dreams of the men, but the film suggests that lucky twists of fate might save a dream - all Fassbinder leaves men with is faith in turns of a friendly card; all he leaves women with is incompatible hopes of settling down with their menfolk, who shaped the patriarchal world in which they're subservient to ideals to which men's inmost dreams are opposed. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Seen better Fassbinder movies. Not worth. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Rio das Mortes

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