Casa Grande

Kaylon Amure

CASA GRANDE REVIEW

Casa Grande is a film set in Brazil in and around the city of Rio de Janerio. A story about class, race, fear of the unknown and ‘coming of age’ the film tries to rebel against the normal conventional Brazil based films, instead of showing the favelas and poverty the film director (Fellipe Barbosa) tries to focus on the problems higher up the class-chain and gives an insight into why Brazil may be the way it is today.

The main protagonist seventeen year old Jean (played by Thales Cavalcanti) is born into wealth and does not have to face a lot of the problems faced by everyday people, and has his world turned upside down when his family faces bankruptcy Jean struggles to come to turns with the changes in his life this is shown in a scene where he argues with his friend about money his father owes his friend’s father, this may show that the upper class in Brazil are shielded from the struggles that are faced by the inhabitants of the favelas and areas of poverty in Rio and are not used to not being able to pay someone back borrowed money as they usually do not have to borrow money.

Education is a key subject in this film as the separation of upper class white individuals from lower class coloured individuals is shown in various different ways one of the main ways is the many heated conversations about the quota system (which allow a small amount of students from public schools to go to the best universities and stop them from joining gangs and enables them to find jobs), this shows the fear that is conveyed by the upper class individuals as the quota systems would allow public school children to have just as much priority to get into a public university as private school kids. 

Jean has an edgy relationship with his family, it is very obvious that he is closer to the people who are outside of his family (the workers), for example a frequently used establishing shot of the gate and the big house show workers each morning coming to work in his home, however as the film progresses each time the shot is shown the amount of workers diminishes until there are none left, this visibly hurts Jean as he feels as if he has no one left to speak to In his home.

The most important aspect of this film is the ending, after all the events that have happened Jean still feels closer to the workers that used to work for his family he then goes to see them instead of doing his examination, this shows that even though that isn’t his family he feels closer to them than his and felt so strongly he potentially ruined his education which is what seems to be most important to his parents, his constant advances on the maid are finally accepted and he sleeps with her, the ending shows us his journey is over and that he has finally become a man of some sorts. The film camera shot of a mid-angle still shot with a cut to black is a good way to end the film as it enables to viewer to create an ending themselves however not answering many questions the viewers have.