Brazilian Football Revisited reviewed in Film Chronicles São Paulo

by JGC from the local desk writing team

"Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS – Once Upon a Time There Was Soccer" isn’t actually a movie about soccer. Only one or three plays ever appears on the screen; the rest of the action takes place away from the field.

Neither is it about the "behind the scenes" of the sport, nor its blemishes: "cartolagem", corruption, doping, or similar happenings. Even when these themes surface here and there – as in the hilarious episode of the bribed referee -, Ugo Giorgetti’s interest isn’t to denounce, rather it is a sentimental chronicle. His movie is a declaration of love and humor towards the characters who make up the universe of the deepest [Brazilian] passion. The narrative’s structure is simple and ingenuous. Around a table in a bar, a group of former soccer players and a former referee evoke folkloric episodes, tragic or comic, they were a party to or witnessed. The movie, then, goes on to explore six of those cases, each some how connected to a team from São Paulo.

Through these stories, Giorgetti not only exposes the most archetypical situations of the sport (the corrupt referee, the player who leaves the training camp, the top player who ends up a pauper, etc.), but also chronicles the different worlds that co-habit the city of São Paulo. From the five star hotel to the shanty towns; from the newsroom to the Santeria temple; from the prime neighborhoods to lowly ones: the metropolis’ various faces shine through, full of colors and life in Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS. By the same token, the actors – from the most famous to the unknown – look like real people, act like real people, speek like real people. One of Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS great merits is exactly revealing the myriad of new and unknown actors, each of them perfectly suited for his role. Along side them, shine veterans such as Flávio Migliaccio, Otávio Augusto and, mainly, the genial Adriano Stuart and Rogério Cardoso (who plays Rolando Lero on TV).

There are irressistibly comic passages (the bribed referee, the torcedores who take the player to a Santeria high-priest, the round table around the TV), and there are moments of pungent drama: the former player who spents all he’s got in order to relive his past glory in one night, the brilliant black athlete taken for a criminal, the former top player who does not recognize himself in photos from his youth.

exactly in the contrast between the day-to-day hardships and the grandiosity of the myth. If its general tone is melancholic, it is because it talks about nothing less than how fickle glory and life can be. Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS isn’t actually a movie about soccer. Only one or three plays ever appears on the screen; the rest of the action takes placae away from the field. Neither is it about the "behind the scenes" of the sport, nor its blemishes: "cartolagem", corruption, doping, or similar happenings. Even when these themes surface here and there – as in the hylarious episode of the bribed referee -, Ugo Giorgetti’s interest isn’t to denounce, rather it is a sentimental chronicle. His movie is a declaration of love and humor towards the characters who make up the universe of the deepest [Brazilian] passion. The narrative’s structure is simple and ingenuous. Around a table in a bar, a group of former soccer players and a former referee evoke folkloric episodes, tragic or comic, they were a party to or witnessed. The movie, then, goes on to explore six of those cases, each some how connected to a team from São Paulo. Through these stories, Giorgetti not only exposes the most archetypical situations of the sport (the corrupt referee, the player who leaves the training camp, the top player who ends up a pauper, etc.), but also chronicles the different worlds that co-habit the city of São Paulo. From the five star hotel to the shanty towns; from the newsroom to the Santeria temple; from the prime neighborhoods to lowly ones: the metropolis’ various faces shine through, full of colors and life in Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS. By the same token, the actors – from the most famous to the unknown – look like real people, act like real people, speek like real people.

One of Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS great merits is exactly revealing the myriad of new and unknown actors, each of them perfectly suited for his role. Along side them, shine veterans such as Flávio Migliaccio, Otávio Augusto and, mainly, the genial Adriano Stuart and Rogério Cardoso. There are irressistibly comic passages (the bribed referee, the torcedores who take the player to a Santeria high-priest, the round table around the TV), and there are moments of pungent drama: the former player who spents all he’s got in order to relive his past glory in one night, the brilliant black athele taken for a criminal, the former top player who does not recognize himself in photos from his youth.

The dramatic force in Brazilian Football Revisited/PROS rests exactly in the contrast between the day-to-day hardships and the grandiosity of the myth. If its general tone is melancholic, it is because it talks about nothing less than how fickle glory and life can be.