Good Manners (2017) [Foreign Horror]
Back in the days before Netflix and mailable DVDs, we used to have to go to the video store to rent VHS cassettes. Luckily, the Putney, Vermont general store had a great video tape collection in the early 1990s! What was especially wonderful, besides their wall of cult favorites, was the full large of foreign movies. Since this was pre-internet days, we didn't have the luxury of looking up titles read about them. All we had was what was on the box and sometimes the boxes lied!
We learned to be wary of movies that were billed as "Triumphs," or "Laughter filled testaments to life!" And the word "Heartwarming" was meant Do not rent this video!" One such South American film, the title escapes me, bore all those labels was about a middle-aged gold digger and her desire to plan to find a sugar daddy so she can leave her husband and ungrateful children. The climax end takes place in a remote in the jungle where the husband and the elderly sugar daddy incapacitate face each ahead of an oncoming flood. The film ends with the woman leaving both men to drown. As she rushes to safety, she comments that someone always cares for stray dogs.
I was reminded of these things after watching 2017's Good Manners from Brazil. The film is a beautiful thing to watch, making Sao Paulo look like a mystical and magical place. The performances are all excellent and found myself deeply involved with the character's story, at least in the first half of the film. All of this magic disappeared during the second half of the film which became unquestionably bleak and even though it was fantastical, was quite unmagical. The ending itself was unquestionably bleak and more than a little puzzling. I really wanted to like this film, but it is one stray dog that no one will take care of.
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