BIMIFF #4 - ENG

B I M I F F
R E V I E W
DOCTOR HYPOTHESES A FILM BY VICENTINI GOMEZ
R E V I E W B Y M A R C E L O C E S A R
30
"Gravidam" film scene
AN UTOPIA TO REFLECT THE "NEW" WORLD
The Covid19 pandemic has made deep transformations in people
and consequently in the society in which we live. We have learned
to work indoors, businesses and jobs have been lost, and people
with whom we lived have left this world in tragic and strange ways.
All of us who survived are changed, there is not a single person
who has not transformed. It has been two years of reflections,
changes, adaptations, and a certain turmoil that most of us don't
even want to think about. Sleepless nights and suffering made us
face ghosts never thought of before, but life goes on.
This is the feeling we get when we watch the Brazilian feature film
Doctor Hypothesis (2020). The film is directed, written, produced,
and starred by the remarkable Vicentini Gomez. It's almost an
hour and thirty minutes of the film with only Gomez, in a single
scenario loaded with various puppets that will be his interlocutors
and his characters. The director's creative ability to dialogue with
himself and his puppet "guests" is astonishing.
As a scriptwriter, the words come out fluently to Gomez. And in
this way, he always sews, sarcastically, with the whole situation we
started to talk about at the beginning of this text. His writing was
influenced by Anton Chekhov's play "On The Evils of Tobacco". The
text brings up the issue that tobacco can cause on your physical
and emotional health. Through the comments of his puppets, the
director builds a text that covers various issues in our
contemporary world. Themes like the pandemic, psychology,
religion, politics, and society, create a patchwork quilt that is up to
the spectator to make the necessary connections. It is interesting
how he adapts a theatrical text from 1886 to today's events, using
mainly the pandemic situation. The text is loaded with
naughtiness and sex simulation, which brings us to the Freudian
questions that so much fill the malevolence of the Brazilian way of
being.
The various voices and characters make one believe that Dr.
Hypothesis is acting with several personalities, to the point that we
close our eyes and can see these individuals. Hence the importance
of the actor in creating "real" personalities.
Vicentini Gomes' experience comes from several works selected by film
and video festivals in Brazil and around the world. This experience makes
the actor/writer/director/producer walk with tranquility through the
small space in which he " performs" with his puppets.
The film has a successful career abroad with awards in various parts of
the world: Best Film in Venezuela and the United States in 2021, Italy and
Brazil in 2022. Meanwhile, Gomes has taken all the awards for best actor,
director, and screenwriter in India, Singapore, Italy, and even in Brazil at
our BIMIFF.
There are several music insertions throughout the film, which are sung
by the puppets, which makes the film also a musical, sometimes breaking
the monotony that a "monologue" could produce. I even question myself
when I write this because the participation of the puppets is so intense
that you forget there is only one actor in the scene. It is brilliant.
About the director:
Vicentini Gomes has won awards, such as the Mambembe Award from the
Minc (Ministry of Culture of Brazil) and the XXVII International Film
Festival of Bahia. In his filmography, we find other titles such as: “Justiça!
Uma História”, “História & Estórias”, “Porto das Monções”, and the series
shown by TV Cultura/SP: “ConsCiência na Cultura”.
Vicentini Gomez is also a member of the UBE - Union of Brazilian Writers.
As an actor, he has a long career in TV and theater with performances
throughout Brazil, Europe, and South America. These are his plays:
“Confidências de um Espermatozoide Careca”, “Três Homens Baixos”,
“Picardias do Picadeiro” and "Eles Não Usam Black-Tie".
Marcelo Cesar
The director Vicentini Gomez