A Beautiful Lie

Rating: 5/10 (25 April 2011)

First, Rio is nicely made with a scene I will never forget - the huge amounts of slime slobbering dog will always stay in my heart beneath another children's movie where it is all about funny vomiting. The slimy dog caused my body to ripple a few times, while the movie did not loose focus on slobbering for a small eternity. It's nice for me to see somebody with equal taste.
There are nice locations, nice colors, nice enemies, nice heroes, and even nice songs, which was a genuine surprise for me, as I usually hate musicals since my earliest youth. I don't need to recommend this movie to anyone, because it seems that already the whole world has watched it. And most people loved it, because it's lighthearted and funny.
And here we come to the amount of light hearts, which I do equal with selfishness (of the seller). When I watched Rio with my children, my son (18yrs) mentioned the high criminal rate in Rio, one of the highest in the world, and I whispered back that he will not see anything of this in the movie except in a polished way that doesn't exist in reality.
I have the archaic theory that watching a movie on the big screen should include a few educational aspects. That may correspond with amounts of money I spend at the cinema (here about 90 incl. junk food for two adults and three children).
In this case lessons one could learn are, that people will not look behind nice illusions even if they know the truth first-hand, as it should be with the Brazil-originated director. And that the nicer and more excited a picture is shown, the more it should be questioned.
In the town Rio of today's days there are private militia organizations, formed by members of the police, fighting against criminal syndicates consisting of up to 5000 heavy-armed men. While the police itself is completely absent in large areas of the town, the militia constantly pushes the criminals out of their range of influence, but demands also a fee from the citizens. The crime detection rate is near 1%.
I know that the Brazilians have an admirable sense for living - or designing - an exciting life(style), the carnival, the Copacabana... But also most Brazilians are poor, uninsured, live between junk, have no future...The mega-cities like Rio may look modern to us, but living in the Favelas is not an easy thing. 2008 in Rio, until June, about 4000 persons died alone by gunshots.
I understand it's not easy to make a pure fun movie for children with all the bad things that exist around. But who would make a movie about the wonderful live in Japan nearby Fukushima without even mentioning its dangers ? - I would say, only a cynical director on a money hunt could do that.
Yes, I know, when it comes to Disney animations or children movies in general, my concerns should be all the same. Watching an idyllic world always needs some parental correctional afterwords. Couldn't i let fun simply be fun ? - No, not when it's hiding something dirty.