Entranced Earth

This is one of the best political films I have ever seen. It captures the one true essential truth about politics: it is little more than a narrative melodrama. There are few films that can compare to the experience of watching this one. It is bursting with life and energy, it is over the top, blatantly experimental, absurd, and contradictory, but so is life. Despite being made in 1960s Brazil, this movie is universal. Vieria and Diaz can just as easily be replaced with Obama and Romney. It lays bare the corruption and hypocrisy that surrounds politics. Sadly, it is a very cynical film and it doesn't offer up much in the way of hope. This can be attributed to the state of Brazilian society at the time. Three years prior the military ousted the elected president in a coup and ushered in an authoritarian nightmare that was to last almost three decades. At the same time, I wish Rocha had been able to see beyond the present.