The Man Who Copied

Two foreign film reviews in a row...Am I just asking for low readership tomorrow or what?

Anyway, I watched this terrific Brazilian film last night, which is out now on DVD, and I couldn't let the occasion pass without giving you guys the recommendation. This is a tremendously fun movie, a fresh and original, and very dark, romantic comedy.



The Man Who Copied reworks classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller material into a playful farce so deftly, you don't even realize what it's doing at first. Writer/director Jorge Furtado starts with creepy voyeurism, petty larceny, sexual obsession, greed and murder and winds up with one of the year's most consistantly funny and charming films. How did he do it?

Much of the success of the film boils down to a wonderful lead performance from young Lazaro Ramos (that's him on the far left). His character, Andre, an impoverished photocopy boy who dreams of great wealth, is a pretty shallow sort, and not exactly an upstanding citizen, and yet he wins us over immediately with his naivete and humanity.

Andre spends his nights watching a girl in a nearby apartment building through binoculars named Silvia (Leandra Leal). She works in a clothing store named Silvia, but it's just a coincidence. Andre occasionally stops by the store, using a potential robe purchase as an excuse, but his poor finances have made him self-conscious and afraid to ask her out.

It's only after he meets the shifty Cardoso (Pedro Cardoso) and discovers that he can counterfeit Brazilian currency using his color copy machine, that the film takes a dark turn, almost morphing into a crime thriller. Though the elements are all there for the movie to actually become a serious look at an increasingly tragic criminal enterprise, Furtado works overtime to keep things light and entertaining. The movie remains funny and optimistic the entire way through.

Andre and Cardoso's small-time counterfeit scheme leads to an increasingly far-fetched series of adventures, culminating in a simultaneous armored car heist and lottery jackpot win. The movie kind of stretches believability, but the film stays true to the spirit of its characters and its free-wheeling tone, and that's all that really matters in the end. Everything else is just nitpicking.

Like another recent Brazilian film, City of God, The Man Who Copied is a movie bursting with vitality and color. The cinematography is endlessly inventive, including an amazing scene in which Andre uses reflected images from a mirror to construct a mental picture of Silvia's bedroom. The movie just has that rush of energy, that buzz that lets you know you're seeing an exciting young filmmaker with a unique vision and natural ability.

This is the kind of interesting, provocative material that drives people to watch foreign films. My only real complaint about the film is that it's rather tame in terms of violence and sexuality. For a movie that contains so much amoral criminality and carnal lust, the film is almost prudish when it comes to crimes or sex. This is a Brazilian film, am I right? Has that country's penchant for flagrant nudity been overstated? Is the Brazilian wax, in fact, just a clever name?