Reviews

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  ★★★★ review by Filipe Furtado on Letterboxd

  Those who live in sin. Outstanding. Yes, the parts barely dialogue and some bit misses, but we need more old auteurs that just don’t care and follow the muse were it takes them and so much of this is so beautiful expressive (those close-ups! The attention to actors flesh, this is very much the work of an artist from a catholic culture).

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  ★★★★ review by Daniel Pilon on Letterboxd

  Can't say I've catch much of what's happening here (and doesn't even think I need), but I loved it. Loose connections are everywhere, but the spots are almost all beautiful. Even though Bellocchio is that filmmaker that receives more attention from arthouse audiences, I can't deny that I see some vulgar intention in his films. Putting a choir to sing Nothing Else Matters is something that could perfectly fit in a Europacorp movie. I would like Bellocchio to go even further and add that choir singing some Rihanna song at that ending sequence, but that's fine.

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  ★★★★★ review by churiana on Letterboxd

  Bruxas > vampiros.

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  ★★★★½ review by preston on Letterboxd

  Trying to figure out why I respond so strongly to Bellocchio's late period (from Religion Hour onwards), and I think it's because his m.o. is to build intricate, forbidding-looking narratives then suddenly inject ethereal emotion, played at full blast; his style seems to grasp the essential truth that we're beings who spend 95% of our time trying to make sense of our lives, yet derive all our most intense moments from bursts of strong feeling based on irrational things like love, music, art, religion, beauty, etc. Hard to parse, in this case, lacking an obvious through-line like the canonised mom in Religion Hour - but the main commonality between its two stories seems to be a clash between bureaucratic "justice" (whether the medieval Church with its rules, or today's financial police requiring everyone to keep receipts) and more ancient ways, those that live in the darkness (light bisecting dark is a recurring image). A vampire's darkness rhymes with isolation - his name, Count Basta, implies he's had enough of immortality - love comes in the dark for a pair of forgotten sisters, a priest's illicit affair (the great unspoken behind the labyrinthine rules of the first half) must be kept in the dark. "And the greatest of these is love," to quote Corinthians - "Nothing else matters," to quote James Hetfield - half-emerging from the darkness to link the two stories and confirm its own immortality. The ending wrecked me, as all irrational things should.

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  ★★★★ review by Guilherme Martins on Letterboxd

  Senta a marretada que aí tem mão pesada - não é o Bellocchio mais acessível, foi disparado a sessão de um de seus filmes com maior número de retiradas nesta retrospectiva. Gostaria de retornar a ele em uma ocasião mais isolada, mas a primeira impressão foi de um grande filme.

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