Cinema
São Paulo, a Metropolitan Symphony
São Paulo, a sinfonia da metrópole
Synopsis
A day in São Paulo at the end of the twenties, from early morning, when the streets are still damp with dew, until evening. The film strings together views of the booming business district, of factories and workers, of the great avenues and public monuments, and also shows fashion, schools and the expansion of coffee, in a city that already has the look of a modern metropolis.
Context
The film takes up the form of the city symphony that Walter Ruttmann had given to Berlin in 1927; the Cinémathèque française sees in it a direct transposition of the European avant-garde and an apologia for the country's industrial development. According to the blog Magia do Real, it fairly quickly abandons the principle of a single day, often returns to skyscrapers under construction, presents a penal colony as a model of regeneration and borrows a trick effect from Vertov; the sixty-three-minute copy that the blogger saw would be half an hour shorter than the original.
Who it is for
A silent film in tinted black and white, with Portuguese intertitles, running from one hour to an hour and a half depending on the copy.
Prizes and reception
Greeted with enthusiasm on its release by the São Paulo critics, it was shown in Paris in 2005 and 2015, and in Brussels.
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