Featured Audience Ratings

• Lucas M

  
  Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's adaptation of Mario de Andrade's novel Macunaima, it's one of the best works of "Cinema Novo" movement, just like of his devoted director/screenwriter. Macunaima is a surrealist black humor film, that matching culture and policy in… More
  Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's adaptation of Mario de Andrade's novel Macunaima, it's one of the best works of "Cinema Novo" movement, just like of his devoted director/screenwriter. Macunaima is a surrealist black humor film, that matching culture and policy in a dark moment in Brazil history. A movie, that never gonna forget, and an obligatory piece of art. Fresh.

• Eric B

  
  Q: Where do girls have the kinkiest hair? A: In Africa. If Alejandro Jodorowsky and Robert Downey Sr. had lobotomies and made a movie together, it might be something like "Macunaima." This bizarre, surreal comedy has a cult following, but you probably won't enjoy it… More
  Q: Where do girls have the kinkiest hair? A: In Africa. If Alejandro Jodorowsky and Robert Downey Sr. had lobotomies and made a movie together, it might be something like "Macunaima." This bizarre, surreal comedy has a cult following, but you probably won't enjoy it unless you get stoned first. Very stoned. The story is an amalgam of Brazilian folk tales, and hence is mostly episodic. The title character is born in the jungle as a full-grown (if petite) black man with wildly unkempt hair. Seeing the actor behave like a bratty toddler is hard to take, though unrepentant racists might find some cheap snickers. Macunaima has various misadventures around the village (often sexual) and discovers that smoking the local herb turns him into an elegant prince. Then one day, he is showered with water from a mysterious underground spring and is permanently transformed into a white man. With wildly unkempt hair. Pauly Shore should license this script for a remake. The setting soon moves to the city. Dopey Macunaima (now portrayed by a second actor) finds love with a sexy revolutionary and fathers a child (the actor who was the original Macunaima also plays the son). But he's also driven to retrieve a magic stone from a fearsome, sadistic "giant" who is actually just a normal-sized man strapped with an enormous fake belly. More strange events follow, including a flesh-splattered party around a piranha-loaded swimming pool and an encounter with a native dancer who can function as a human voodoo doll. Macunaima has an inexplicable fixation on ants too. Sure, why not? This parable has a certain crude, low-budget charm, but you're better off sticking with "The Gods Must Be Crazy."