RATING: | 40% |
FORMAT: | DVD |
[Paradise Lost]
CUIDADO!
Despite spending time revealing Brazilian culture at its best, this still plays the White supremacist trope that foreign countries are dangerous for Whites simply because of the dark skins of the natives. Believing that foreign people and their resources are to be both exploited and mocked, we now see the naked fear behind such a White polity.
It is easy to understand why the natives here detest White tourists because of the quintessential White supremacism of the latter. But these issues are never fully explored dramatically in favor of gore, cheap thrills & a sense that the mestizo of Brazil is finally getting its revenge on the palefaces for the generic exploitation of the Third World for the sole benefit of the First.
There is no real sense of terror, suspense or even credibility here. As usual, the mixed bag of Westernized Whites represent political innocence abroad as if they can do little wrong - even in their self-admitted purposelessness. This creates a curious lack of empathy between the audience and the central characters; almost making us side with the evil goings-on perpetrated against them.
Hitchcock knew that the greatest horror comes from the familiar seen differently, rather than simply relying on the rather obvious fear-of-the-unknown, as here. He also knew that you have to establish the characters, psychologically, as well as their relationship to each other (& themselves) before an audience could ever care about them.
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