Fascinating mind game is Coutinho's best film in years

Teatro Glauce Rocha, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Walmor Chagas, Darlene Glória, Eva Wilma, and Otelo Zeloni in São Paulo, Sociedade Anônima (1965)

Eduardo Coutinho and Marília Pêra in Jogo de cena (2007)

Marília Pêra

Andrea Beltrão

Fernanda Torres

Following a newspaper ad, ordinary women tell part of their life stories to director Eduardo Coutinho, which are then re-enacted by actresses, blurring the barriers between truth, fiction and interpretation.

Eduardo Coutinho

Jogo de cena

Fascinating mind game is Coutinho&apos;s best film in years

Just when Eduardo Coutinho&apos;s (semi)documentaries seemed to have become uncomfortably predictable -- when his personalist, inquisitive, biased, &quot;screw-impartiality&quot; style seemed to take over whatever reality he was investigating at the time -- &quot;Jogo de Cena&quot; arrives to show us that, at 74, he has found extra breath and is at the top of his game. 

I have little to add to blur4fun spot-on comment here, except to say this is one of the wittiest formalist exercises on film structure in recent memory. It proves that imagination and intelligence can make seemingly ordinary material -- life stories told (or enacted) by women who may or may not be actresses -- rise to puzzling metalinguistic heights when cleverly rearranged and interconnected. It&apos;s also a well-humored investigation about the elastic boundaries of the eternal &quot;truth or artifice&quot; issue in the documentary form.

At first, what we see on the screen seems to belong to daytime TV slice-of-life talk-shows: people spilling out their personal dramas and tragedies. But, as in Jean Rouch&apos;s partly fake &quot;Chronique d&apos;un Été&quot; and Orson Welles&apos;s landmark faux-documentary &quot;F for Fake&quot; (both seem to be influential here), somewhere along the way, we become mind- boggled: is that a &quot;real life&quot; woman or an actress? Who&apos;s the real &quot;owner&quot; of that life story? What is more important, to believe in the story or in the person who&apos;s telling it? Does the fact of suddenly realizing someone is acting out (and fooling us) prevent us from being moved by that story? Why do we take for granted that certain &quot;formats&quot; present the truth, like documentaries and one-on-one interviews?

By the end of &quot;Jogo de Cena&quot; (the title aptly refers to the theatrical world of make believe, and it&apos;s not by chance the single set is an empty stage), we realize -- with a smile -- that we&apos;ve been had, and, though the film is strictly realistic in its visual style, it&apos;s a journey that can be as rich and fun as letting your mind be bent by a Cortázar story, a Robbe-Grillet novella, a Buñuel film or an Escher drawing.

&quot;Jogo de Cena&quot; comes out in the same year as remarkable Brazilian films like &quot;Proibido Proibir&quot;, &quot;Santiago&quot;, &quot;O Ano em que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias&quot;, &quot;Mutum&quot;, &quot;Cidade dos Homens&quot;, &quot;Saneamento Básico&quot;; controversial ones like &quot;Baixio das Bestas&quot;, &quot;Cão sem Dono&quot;, &quot;Estômago&quot;, &quot;O Cheiro do Ralo&quot;, besides the box-office bulldozer (and winner of the Berlin Golden Bear) &quot;Tropa de Elite&quot;. In the future, 2007 will have to be remembered as a very special year for Brazilian cinema.

Just when Eduardo Coutinho's (semi)documentaries seemed to have become uncomfortably predictable -- when his personalist, inquisitive, biased, "screw-impartiality" style seemed to take over whatever reality he was investigating at the time -- "Jogo de Cena" arrives to show us that, at 74, he has found extra breath and is at the top of his game. 

I have little to add to blur4fun spot-on comment here, except to say this is one of the wittiest formalist exercises on film structure in recent memory. It proves that imagination and intelligence can make seemingly ordinary material -- life stories told (or enacted) by women who may or may not be actresses -- rise to puzzling metalinguistic heights when cleverly rearranged and interconnected. It's also a well-humored investigation about the elastic boundaries of the eternal "truth or artifice" issue in the documentary form.

At first, what we see on the screen seems to belong to daytime TV slice-of-life talk-shows: people spilling out their personal dramas and tragedies. But, as in Jean Rouch's partly fake "Chronique d'un Été" and Orson Welles's landmark faux-documentary "F for Fake" (both seem to be influential here), somewhere along the way, we become mind- boggled: is that a "real life" woman or an actress? Who's the real "owner" of that life story? What is more important, to believe in the story or in the person who's telling it? Does the fact of suddenly realizing someone is acting out (and fooling us) prevent us from being moved by that story? Why do we take for granted that certain "formats" present the truth, like documentaries and one-on-one interviews?

By the end of "Jogo de Cena" (the title aptly refers to the theatrical world of make believe, and it's not by chance the single set is an empty stage), we realize -- with a smile -- that we've been had, and, though the film is strictly realistic in its visual style, it's a journey that can be as rich and fun as letting your mind be bent by a Cortázar story, a Robbe-Grillet novella, a Buñuel film or an Escher drawing.

"Jogo de Cena" comes out in the same year as remarkable Brazilian films like "Proibido Proibir", "Santiago", "O Ano em que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias", "Mutum", "Cidade dos Homens", "Saneamento Básico"; controversial ones like "Baixio das Bestas", "Cão sem Dono", "Estômago", "O Cheiro do Ralo", besides the box-office bulldozer (and winner of the Berlin Golden Bear) "Tropa de Elite". In the future, 2007 will have to be remembered as a very special year for Brazilian cinema.

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