Rebel in Rio

Want more Brazil (who doesn’t, really)? Check out the second- annual Brazil Film Fest running Thu, Nov 27 to 30.

Toronto finally gets to see the film that millions of Brazilians flocked to in 2004, Cazuza: Time Doesn’t Stop. This typical music biopic is based on the life and times of Cazuza, a Brazilian gay poet and rock-and-roll rebel from the 1980s who came to be a national romantic hero of the time.

Cazuza played hard and died young of AIDS at the age of 32. The film tells the short but epic tale of Cazuza’s life, from his young musical career, rise to fame, AIDS diagnosis, the decision to go public and finally his decline and death. Directed by Walter Carvalho and Sandra Werneck, Cazuza is infused with the ’80s milieu of drugs, sex and rock and roll set against the rising AIDS crisis. At times overly melodramatic and skirting over Cazuza’s promiscuity this biopic is as compelling as it is shallow. Daniel Oliveria brilliantly plays the young Cazuza as he goes from the height of his career to ravaged by AIDS.