Capsule for InRO's Neighboring Scenes coverage:

Marcelo Gomes’ Waiting for the Carnival unfolds in the village of Toritama, the self-proclaimed “capital of jeans,” in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. Though it is a site of near-constant production, it has no factories as such, and is instead comprised of small household workshops (known as factions), where “self-employed” individuals regularly put in ten- to 12-hour days. The late capitalist illusion of “being your own boss” is self-evident, as is the frightening efficacy…

Went long (much too long) on Bellocchio's latest for the VIFF Blog, with particular reference to, especially, The Leopard, and Edward Said's (and Adorno's) conception of "late style." There are some comparisons to be made with The Irishman, and though I don't mention Scorsese's film at all, I think the piece implicitly deals with why I greatly prefer Bellocchio's. Excerpt below:

The Traitor, Marco Bellocchio’s latest feature, opens during the feast of Saint Rosalia in 1980, in the Sicilian capital…

A film built on various contradictions and oppositions: an austere, barely-populated church straight out of Bergman yoked to the behemoth prosperity gospel institution of Abundant Life; a son (Joseph, "the dreamer") sacrificed in "a war without moral justification" and a 'son' (Philip Ettinger's Michael) lost in the moral quandary of a decaying earth ("Will God forgive us?"); a Märta figure à la Winter Light (Victoria Hill's Esther) seen as a constant reminder of earthly inadequacy, placed against Amanda Seyfried's Mary,…