The End of an Age (2014)

A joy for the eyes and ears, this high-point of the Brazilian trilogy Operation Sonia Silk. A dreamy making-of about the two other episodes and also a cinematographic essay (in picture, text, sound and music) about cinema and filmmaking and, above all, about love. 'What is this thing called love? This funny thing called love? Just who can solve its mystery? Why should it make a fool of me?' So goes the short, poetic synopsis provided by the filmmakers Bruno Safadi and Ricardo Pretti for this third part of their trilogy Operation Sonia Silk. In this 'operation', shot in three weeks, the directors each separately made one part (Harmonica's Howl and Rio Belongs to Us, both shown at IFFR 2012), and then this joint third part, which grew into a surprising high-point. A joy to watch and hear, a film that occasionally looks like a making-of, occasionally an essay and always as a homage to cinema and love in text, sound and vision: 'verbivocovisual', as Brazilian form poets call that. The whole thing breathes the atmosphere of romantic Hollywood films from the 1930s, but is equally influenced by the Cinema Marginal directors Bressane and Sganzerla. Young star actresses Leandra Leal and Mariana Ximenes worked in the film for free.