 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: King Car (aka Carro Rei) • Year: 2021 • Country: Brazil • Director: Renata Pinheiro • Main cast: Luciano Pedro Jr., Matheus Nachtergaele, Jules Elting, Clara Pinheiro • Runtime: 97 minutes • Production company: Aroma Filmes • TRAILER
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In an early scene in King Car (2021) two of the main characters are having this conversation:
– Maybe it be that we are turning into machines?
– Perhaps we already are machines. And these technological we make gadgets are our offspring. From this evolution, there is no return.
Besides this being a little spoiler of what we’re going to find in this movie, it is also a metaphor of the world we’re living in when we the humans are alienated and depending on a bunch of machines and devices that first were designed to make our lives easier, and not to take it away from us.
King Car (2021), or Carro Rei in the original Portuguese language, is a beautiful fable of the times we’re living in. The fight between technology against nature, progress against comfort, is present throughout the entire running time. We must take a side, equilibrium doesn’t exist. You’re either on one side or the other. And like this, in constant conflict, there is no way to improve. Don’t we ever learn from our past mistakes?
The movie starts as some sort of a fantasy fairy tale. As a little boy, Uno has the ability to talk to cars. That old taxi car is his best friend, and he spends hours and hours inside the cab. A little silly and childish fantasy setup that soon turns into a very adult story. All beautifully filmed and acted, and with a screenplay that goes from a children’s tale into a mastodontic fight between man and machine.
I’ve read some have qualified King Car (2021) as “the Brazilian Christine (1983) [the film adaptation of the popular Stephen King novel]”, but it is much more. The producer, co-writer, and director Renata Pinheiro uses the fantasy element to create a story touching very serious subjects as can be capitalism, corruption, and the climate threat. It is true the film becomes too big in terms of ambition, but it manages to keep the simplicity of the little fantasy tale it was in the early steps of the running time. And, as happens with real life, the end is yet to come, get your own conclusions.
King Car (2021) is one of those films that must be in any fantasy film festival like Fantasia is. But it is much more than a genre formality, it is an enjoyable trip, as childish as mature, and visually attractive and impeccable. And I’m glad I had the chance to see it because it’s going to stay in my head for a while.
RATE: 7/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13886712
