This was the first big Brazilian drama that HBO worked on, and it’s a five-episode miniseries that lasts almost five hours in total. It’s a really emotional and political story set in Rio de Janeiro during the late 1980s, and it does a great job of showing what that era felt like while the country was dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis. Since the world feels so divided today, the show is a beautiful reminder of how queer people can find power by standing together when things are hard. The story is actually based on real things that happened, specifically about flight attendants who smuggled AIDS medicine from the US into Brazil in the 80s. It works as both a history drama and a strong political message. The show is mostly about three people: Nando, his best friend Lea (they both work as flight attendants for Fly Brasil), and Raul, who is a performer and an activist. A lot of the story happens at a club called Paradise, which was one of the few open gay clubs back in the 80s. Nando is a h...
I wanted to like this film. I really did, despite its erratic direction, sometimes split screen visuals and scenes jumping from one event to other without sufficient explanation. The story was fine and after initial discomfort, you kinda get a hang of things but the end was so abrupt. The shock value in the end was interesting but a proper culmination was also needed. You can't just shock the audience and leave the story just there. Gil is a 20 year old young man who lives with her aunt and her husband, since his mother died at a very young age. Gil loves his aunt to death but cannot stand his uncle. Due to the differences between then, the uncle throws Gil out of the house. Gil's life style is all about smoking, guitar, music and alcohol. When even his girlfriend cannot accommodate him at night, he is at the beach looking for alcohol where he meets 40 something Otavio. We earlier see that Otavio is with his boyfriend and he still very much remembers his teenage years when...