What to Watch Online This Week at Cinema Tropical
Films Available to Stream Now:
Virtual Theatrical Release:
THE FEVER
(A Febre, Maya Da-Rin, Brazil/ France/Germany, 2019, 98 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Manaus is an industrial city surrounded by the Amazon rainforest. Justino, a 45 years old Desana native, works as a security guard at the cargo port. Since the death of his wife, his main company is his youngest daughter with whom he lives in a modest house on the outskirts of town. Nurse at a health clinic, Vanessa is accepted to study medicine in Brasilia and will need to be leaving soon. As the days go by, Justino is overcome by a strong fever. During the night, a mysterious creature follows his footsteps. During the day, he fights to stay awake at work. But soon the tedious routine of the harbor is broken by the arrival of a new guard. Meanwhile, his brother’s visit makes Justino remember the life in the forest, from where he left twenty years ago. Between the oppression of the city and the distance of his native village, Justino can no longer endure an existence without place.
Watch Now
Daily Recommendation:
ALIAS MARÍA
(José Luis Rugeles, Colombia/ Argentina/France, 2015, 92 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and Colombia’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 89th Academy Awards, Alias María is the sophomore work from director Jose Luis Rugeles (García), which unflinchingly shines a light on Colombia’s armed conflict, through the eyes of a young, pregnant soldier. The films follows Maria, a 13-year-old guerilla soldier, is given the mission to bring a commander’s newborn baby to safety in a neighboring town. But nobody knows the secret that she is pregnant with her own baby. Despite the prohibitions against it, Maria decides to keep the baby and is forced to run away.
Daily Recommendation:
EL AMPARO
(Rober Calzadilla, Colombia/ Venezuela, 2016, 99 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
“On October 1988, 14 men were murdered by the Venezuelan military in El Amparo, a village near the Arauca River. The victims were fishermen, but the military claimed they were guerilla fighters. This painful atrocity and its tumultuous aftermath are the subject of Rober Calzadilla’s haunting first feature. Based on a play by Calzadilla and scriptwriter Karin Valecillos, El Amparo invests much time in its characters, their relationships and way of life, while, in a masterstroke of directorial judiciousness, the massacre itself is elided, its horrors left to our imagination. This is a profound meditation on how communities contend with outrage and grief, and the troubling question of who gets to control historical truth.” —Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Daily Recommendation:
ACNÉ
(Federico Veiroj, Uruguay/Argentina/ Spain/Mexico, 2008, 87 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
“Acné centers on thirteen-year-old Rafael on the eve of his bar mitzvah in contemporary Montevideo. The American coming-of-age film often centers on tragicomic attempts to lose one’s virginity, but for Rafael, that is easily accomplished by a trip to the brothel. What he finds more complicated is making his peace with a highly imperfect, even corrupt, family, and with an invisible but seemingly undeniable set of constricting expectations about gender and relations between the sexes. That Acné, Veiroj’s feature debut, is also his most conventional film is not so surprising, but it does hint at the limitations of its genre. Where Hollywood places its emphasis on the integration of the adolescent into society, Veiroj suggests a more modern question (“Is it the individual who should change, or society?”) with the lightest of humor and the gentlest of touches.” —Harvard Film Archive
SON OF MONARCHS at the Atlanta Film Festival:
(Hijo de monarcas, Alexis Gambis, Mexico/USA, 2020, 97 min. In Spanish and English with English subtitles)
Employing a rich and romantic visual tapestry, this drama tells the story of Mendel, who grew up enchanted by the migrating monarch butterflies in his native Michoacán. Now, he sequences their DNA in New York while trapeze lessons allow him to experience their flight. On a visit back home to Mexico, the young man finds himself weighing matters of culture, love, and family, recognizing how his own life path has followed the migration of the beloved insects he studies.
Available to stream nationwide from Thursday, April 22 through Sunday, May 2
Virtual Theatrical Release:
MY DARLING SUPERMARKET
(Meu Querido Supermercado, Tali Yankelevich, Brazil/Denmark, 2019, 80 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
Grocery store employees, today’s essential workers, get star treatment in My Darling Supermarket (made prior to the pandemic). Set within a bright, colorful supermercado in São Paulo, Brazil, this charming, funny documentary glides through a seemingly endless array of vibrantly designed shelves and displays, but it’s the store’s employees who take center stage. Rodrigo (in bread) discusses quantum physics and parallel universes; Santo (a forklift operator) builds video game cities; a security officer tracks possible shoplifters on closed circuit TVs (“Two suspects near the condensed milk!”); Ivan (a baker) likes to dress as Goku, a Manga character; and then there’s the artist who lovingly paints the prices. A panoply of individuals with fears, hopes, and questions about their place in the universe are celebrated in a quirky portrait that juxtaposes their idiosyncrasies with the assumed mundanity of bringing food to our table.
Daily Recommendation:
THE POPE’S TOILET
(El baño del Papa, Cesar Charlone and Enrique Fernández, Uruguay/ France/ Brazil, 2007, 97 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
It’s 1988, and Melo, an Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border, awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. 50,000 people are expected to attend, and the most humble locals believe that selling food and drink to the multitude will just about make them rich. Petty smuggler Beto thinks he has the best idea of all–he decides he will build a WC in front of his house and charge for its use. His efforts bring about unexpected consequences, and the final results will surprise everyone.
Daily Recommendation:
THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO
(El crimen del Padre Amaro, Carlos Carrera, Mexico, 2002, 103 min. In Spanish with English subtitles)
“A recently ordained priest named Amaro arrives in the town of Los Reyes to help the local spiritual shepherd – aging Father Benito. He is idealistic and determined to serve God and his new parishioners, but he soon discovers that real life is different from how he had conceived it. He finds out that Benito has a lover, the pub owner Sanjuanera, and that he’s accepting contributions to build a hospital from a local drug boss who is thereby laundering money. Amaro too betrays his mission by falling in love with Sanjuanera’s young and devout daughter Amelia. The girl’s jealous fiancé Rubén decides to expose the corrupt priests publicly, but the bishop hushes up the threatened scandal with Amaro’s help: the latter is now more than happy to ignore the truth if it will help his ambitions. Even his passionate relationship with the now pregnant and unhappy Amelia won’t stand in the way of his career… This modern adaptation of the classic novel by Eça de Queirós was Mexico’s most popular film of 2002 and was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.” —Karlovy Vary Film Festival