Art of the Reel

[Extra Credit]


Attending Art of the Reel.

Castanha
Davi Pretto | 2014 | 95 mins
Saturday, April 19
9:00pm


        On Saturday, April 19th I went to the Art of the Reel film festival to see the documentary Castanha by Davi Pretto.  The story is about a middle-aged man who lives with his mother and supports her and himself through his double life as a child entertainer and cross-dresser.
       The documentary was unique because of Pretto’s way of mixing a documentary story with fiction like elements.  It boarder lined on the genre of thriller or horror because graphic content.  The film was a bit uncomfortable to watch at times which seemed to be exactly what Pretto was looking for.  The storyline itself is uncomfortable, so to reflect this in the imagery of the film made sense.  The film was very dark and involved a lot of sillouettes and shadows which added to the eery film.  Shots would some time start out blurry and then go into focus, this kept the audience at the edge of their seats questioning what they were looking at until it came into plain focus.  A few shots that stood out to me was the over the shoulder shot in the cab car where the cab driver is talking while he is driving.  This along with the narrative voice overs reminded the audience that this was an actual documentary.  The extreme close up of Castanha putting on his drag makeup was another great shot that showed the transition from Castanha’s home life into his work life.
       The most significant shot to me was the shot of Castanha stumbling forward naked and bloody.  This shot seemed to be straight out of a horror movie.  Pretto’s decision to shoot it straight on with Castanha dead center and moving closer to the camera was a very strong and powerful decision.  I enjoyed how Pretto started making the movie with a strong desire to make the audience feel the pain and emotions in the story.  He did everything he could in his film to get these feelings to reach the viewers.