Tropicália

2012

1h 27m

Documentary

Music

List

80%

Tomatometer

5 Reviews

63%

Audience Score

50+ Ratings

Artists begin a movement in Brazil in the 1960s in response to violent repression.

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Thirza Wakefield

Little White Lies

It'll walk you to the music store the morning after.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 4, 2013

Full Review

Andrew Pulver

Guardian

[An] affectionate, if somewhat genuflecting documentary.

Rated: 3/5

Jul 4, 2013

Full Review

Adam Lowes

CineVue

Acts as a timely and potent reminder that those with creative impulses can engage in political discourse and address the disenfranchised through other, equally effective channels.

Rated: 4/5

Feb 26, 2019

Full Review

Catherine Shoard

Observer (UK)

For beginners keen for a crash course, this hits every button with precision.

Jul 7, 2013

Full Review

Simon Kinnear

Total Film

There's a noble ambition to recapture the vibrancy of the music, but the results are just confusing to anybody without a working knowledge of Brazilian history.

Rated: 2/5

Jul 3, 2013

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Audience Member

I love Bossa Nova music. I really hadn't followed or even known anything about the politics of the Tropicalia movement of the 60s, which I just thought was a musical genre. It was really so much more than that. It was a revolution, a movement, and in the mid-60s during a dramatic time in the Brazilian government, there was extraordinary censorship, and the main players in the Tropicalia movement really had to fight for creative freedom…They were thought to be threats. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil among others were arrested and put in jail, exiled to London – really for nothing other than the government not liking what they were singing about. I learned all of this from the doc and then went down my own wormhole reading more about it. This film covers all of this, and has amazing footage from the time…performances, lots of amazing Os Mutantes footage and interviews, Tom Ze, life in Bahia, protests, etc. It was an interesting view although maybe not the most informative as I was a little lost in the beginning. I'll give this ‪7/10‬ *PS: I'm awarding it "Best title sequences"…..amazing graphic work…

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A must-see for fans of the too-short-lived Brazilian art movement. Great performance footage of Veloso, Gil, Os Mutantes--and a spectacular explanatory explosion by Tom Ze.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

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Audience Member

Interesting documentary on the Brazilian tropicalia movement in music (and other arts) a combination of folk art and psychedelia that arose in the 60s.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

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Audience Member

An exciting documentary subject, but Machado tries too hard to claim authorship of 90 minutes of archive footage. An exhausting watch, but the soundtrack is great, of course. http://366movies.com/2012/11/14/303tropicalia/

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

01/12/23

Full Review

Audience Member

In 1967 the art in Brazil ceased to be an bourgeois' instrument of intellectual domain to assume a form of sensory manifestation. It was the Tropicalista movement happening. And this documentary is not a defining exercise, but an effervescence of rare images, sounds, music and testimonies that seek to make the viewer feel what was (or is) the Tropicalismo. And so is victorious. With a research impeccable, they bring to the screen materials previously unknown, unpublished. A must see movie for anyone who call himself Brazilian.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

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Marcelo Machado

Director

Caetano Veloso

Actor

Gilberto Gil

Actor

Marcelo Machado

Writer

Vaughn Glover

Writer

Di Moretti

Writer

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Synopsis

Artists begin a movement in Brazil in the 1960s in response to violent repression.

Director: Marcelo Machado
Producer: Andrew Eaton, Oliver Kwon, Fernando Meirelles, Maurice James
Screenwriter: Marcelo Machado, Vaughn Glover, Di Moretti
Production Co: Bossa Nova Films, Americas Film Conservancy
Genre: Documentary, Music
Original Language: Portuguese (Brazil)
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 17, 2016
Runtime: 1h 27m

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