Two friends go their separate ways at age 17, affected by the troubling teenage conflicts in the small and conservative city of Coti das Fuças, in the countryside of Brazil. Levi, a poet, tired of being mistreated, sticks to the friends’ plan of moving to a big city. Elias, opressed by a violent father, gives up on the idea of leaving. At age 50, Levi comes back to reunite with his friend during a funeral, when their memories are relived before the last goodbye. Inspired by the theater play Aldeotas, by Gero Camilo.
Although Christmas is a time of year for love and cheer for all, holiday cinema has not always represented diverse communities. Being a holiday with Christian origins, much of its media consists of straight white families or straight white romances. Luckily, modern years have been bringing with them plenty of POC and LGBTQ+ representation that the holidays so desperately need.
When they’re young, they’re America’s darlings but, when they become teens and adolescents, they’re instantly perceived as harbingers of immorality. They’re Lindsay Lohan, Macaulay Culkin, Justin Bieber, and Britney Spears. But, despite what many media outlets, politicians, and the general public may think, they are human beings above anything else. The new Billie Eilish documentary, Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, proves this — showing the trials, tribulations, and humanity when growing up with all the world’s eyes on you.
What are we willing to walk through to see our dreams come to pass? Our minds might be so wholly alive with the passions we carry and the plans we make to see these things become all we wish them to be, yet life doesn’t always want to come alongside. Instead, obstacles arise, both physical and mental, which attempt to dissuade us or even prevent us from moving forward, stalling or stagnating the momentum to achieve what we desire. The age-old question remains….can we overcome? Or will we BE overcome?
Unfortunately, People We Meet on Vacation didn’t hold up quite as well as I’d hoped.
Episode 3, entitled “Now in Color,” brings us to the 1970s — a decade full of vibrancy, color, and total mayhem.
