AFI FEST Report: Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (Cinema, Aspirina e Urubus) Review

As AFI Fest draws to a close Peter Martin keeps chugging along. And he has assured us that he has been taking care of himself for the past 11 days. We appreciate the lengths that some of our contributors and readers have gone for us but death is just unnecessary and silly. Here's his take on the Brazilan buddy picture Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures.

Chugging through the alien desert hinterlands of 1942 northeastern Brazil, Johann is growing tired of selling Aspirin.

He drives his truck endlessly as the harsh sun beats down mercilessly. He fled Germany to escape the war, and found a job in which he travels from town to town, setting up makeshift cinemas to show movies and hawk newfangled Aspirin. The villagers don't even have electricity, so the movies draw them in, and they are easy marks for a new drug that far-away corporate vultures have decided they need.

On one of the wasted dirt roads, Johann (Peter Ketnath) picks up hitchhiker Ranulpho (Joao Miguel), who has given up on his home region and is determined to go to Rio de Janeiro. Ranulpho watches Johann with low-key ambition: the German drives, eats, enjoys one-night stands, and makes enough money that he can sock away most of it for the future. Sensing opportunity, Ranulpho talks himself into a job with Johann, and the two men slowly get to know each other as they traverse the region. A snake bite strangely energizes Johann, until word arrives that World War II has finally touched Brazil.

Working from stories told to him by family friends, debut director Marcelo Gomes has fashioned a humanist buddy picture that gets under the skin of its characters. Don't expect startling revelations about childhood secrets; this isn't that kind of movie. It's certainly not a talk-fest, either. Gomes intentionally overexposed the film, as he noted in a post-screening Q & A. As a result, the bleached-out, harsh glare of daylight gives way to a look that still simmers after the sun goes down. So the landscape is as much a character as Johann and Ranulpho, and inexorably exerts its power upon them. Bringing these disparate parts together, Gomes managers to maintain one's attention even while very little "action" takes place.

CINEMA, ASPIRIN AND VULTURES had its World Premiere at Cannes and its North American Premiere at AFI FEST. It is due to open shortly in Brazil.

More information, including the trailer, can be found at the film's official web site.