Rio 2096: a Story of Love and Fury | Dr. Grob's Animation Review

Director: Luiz Bolognesi
Release Date: April 5, 2013
Rating: ★★
Review:

‘Uma História de Amor e Fúria’ (Rio 2096: a Story of Love and Fury) is a a rather depressing film from Brazil, showing three violent episodes in Brazilian history, plus one in the future.

Main protagonist is the Tupinambá Indian Abeguar, who is granted the possibility of flight and immortality, reincarnating as a bird. Through his eternal love interest Janaína he can reincarnate back into a human form, which he does three times during the film.

This framing story binds the four separate episodes, which take place in 1556, the 1820s, 1968-1980 and 2096. The first episode shows us his Tupinambá self, and how his tribe gets slaughtered and enslaved by Portuguese colonists. In the second episode Abeguar reincarnates as a poor farmer joining a troop of enraged farmers and escaped slaves during Brazil’s war of independence. In the third episode he’s a teacher fighting the military dictatorship, and in the last episode, taking place in the future, he fights in a war over scarce water.

‘Uma História de Amor e Fúria’ shows Brazil’s troubled history. Throughout the picture life is showed through the eyes of the underdog. Abeguar sarcastically observes that his oppressors get statues, while the oppressed remain anonymous.

‘Uma História de Amor e Fúria’ is an accomplished work: the animation is fairly good, if a little mechanical, the backgrounds are gorgeous, and the production values pretty high. The film clearly aims at a more adult audience, not eschewing nudity or graphic violence.

The film is hampered, however, by rather ugly designs: the humans look like those from Disney’s Pocahontas (1995), but with even more angular designs. The animation of emotions is crude and stereotypical. But more important: the film is totally devoid of humor. It is dark and heavy throughout, without any light moments. This gives the film a propagandistic gravity, which becomes tiresome in the end.

Watch the official trailer of ‘Uma História de Amor e Fúria’ and tell me what you think: