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MEMORIES THEY TOLD ME

A MEMÓRIA QUE ME CONTAM

By Lucia MURAT

Drama - Completed 2012

An ironic drama about defeated utopias, terrorism, sexual behavior and the creation of a myth. A group of friends, who resisted the military dictatorship, and their children will face the conflict between the daily life of today and the past when one of them is dying.

- Year of production
- 2012
- Genres
- Drama
- Countries
- BRAZIL, CHILE, ARGENTINA
- Languages
- PORTUGUESE
- Duration
- 95 mn
- Director(s)
- Lucia MURAT
- Writer(s)
- Lucia MURAT, Tatiana SALEM LEVY
- Cast
- Franco NERO, Simone SPOLADORE, Irene RAVACHE
- Producer(s)
- Lucia MURAT (Taiga Filmes), Adrian SOLAR (Ceneca Producciones), Felicitas RAFFO (Cepa Audiovisual), Julia SOLOMONOFF
- Synopsis
- ANA is dying. Ex-guerrilla, icon of the Left, she is the last link of a group of friends that resisted the military dictatorship in Brazil. On the waiting room of a health clinic they meet again. Unsuccessful utopias, terrorism and sexual liberation from the point of view of two generations, a group of ex-guerrillas and their children, are the themes of this film. Narrated as a puzzle, in a sequence of emotions and sensations that do not obey a classic narrative, the film shows ANA only when young, as she had never left the 1960s. She is young, beautiful and dangerously fragile.
  As background for these issues, A memória que me contam [Memories they told me] followsthe daily lives of the main characters today. IRENE, film maker, is working on a film related to the 1960s. The couple, Henrique, plastic artist, and ZEZÉ, a contemporary art curator. EDUARDO, IRENE’s son, is a young rising artist and is involved in a romantic relationship with GABRIEL, RICARDO’s son, an ex-militant, today a professor, who, from the behavioral point of view is extremely conservative.
  Each of the characters in the waiting room brings an issue that connects the 1960s to current issues. PAOLO, refugee in Brazil, accused of belonging to an armed group in Italy of the 1970s, he brings the discussion of terrorism to current days. Why is he still seen as a criminal and the Brazilian characters are heroes? What else distinguished the reality of guerrilla warfare in Brazil, which lived under a dictatorship, from Italy in the 1970s?
  IRENE and PAOLO had an affair in the past. The triangle formed one day by PAOLO, IRENE and ANA surfaces. But today, facing the possibility of losing ANA, what is important to all of the friends gathered there is the affection that unites them. A request of extradition done by Italy takes PAOLO to prison in Brazil. All the discussions worsen, including with ZÉ CARLOS, current Minister of the Government.
  At the same time, the young generation, children of the ex-militant, gets into conflict with the elders. They all have a deep admiration for their parents, due to the myth around the resistant to the dictatorship, they even have a little jealousy of this “heroic” past. However, the contradictions in the professional and behavioral life will emphasize the differences. The arrival of Chloé, Ana’s niece that lives in Paris, is another motivation to this conflict.
  ANA’s death reunites the friends. At the cemetery, anteroom of the cremation, they are all present for a last homage. On the big screen, this homage is more than perfect. It is a beautiful and perfect cinematographic scene in which ANA has the farewell her friends wished her to have. IRENE is happy to have made a beautiful film about her friend.
  The spectator understands IRENE’s film is about ANA. The cinema as the possible dream.