Música
Música
Rudy, a character in the romantic comedy “Música”, is a hearing specialist and the entire world to him is based on sounds. He hears different ambient and mundane activities as music and beats which gets him into trouble in school and with his girlfriend, Haley (Francesca Reale). His mother, Maria (Maria Mancuso) wants to him suggest marrying a girl from their Brazilian community residing in Newark, New Jersey. He was previously resistant to these aspects but he finds his match in Isabella (Camila Mendes), a Brazillian American at the local fish market, thus Rudy begins to hear the sound of a new song which is music to his ears.
“Música” offers exactly what it sells: a romance plot, soundtracks, and an indicator of the Brazilian spirit, starting from the movie’s colorful poster comprising the colors of the country’s flag which are green, yellow and white. In a story developed by Mancuso, Rudy is the name of the character who in fact has synesthesia, which is having the condition in which one sensory stimulus triggers another, suggesting someone can have the ability to taste colors or hear something that makes them see something.
Rudy has the latter, where the banalities of life such as that of the traffic, flights, children playing in the park, and people in activity are such an onslaught that they prevent him from steadying his thoughts, and to him, such an experience in the movie is typified by a multitude of hits on the same theme, using portions of the film in which normal melodies were created from everyday things in the fashion of the now-defunct Broadway project “Stomp.”
To some extent, it’s a little like “All That Jazz” because in the same sense Mancuso uses performing arts in the context of trying to explain his hardship in relationships, and managing to appease people. Without fail, Mancuso, who is the composer of the song in “Música” has been accurate in the presentation in every aspect of his creativity thanks to his imagination, where he incorporates puppets, animations, and distinct architecture in the designs.
Certain songs don’t evoke much feeling and some don’t elicit emotion, for instance, the songs performed by the busker on the train station are perhaps the weakest aspects of the film. And then, on the contrary, there are great shots that leave an imprint on one’s mind, such as Rudy running around the town in an attempt to keep three women by employing various locations and props – just one of the scenes in the movie that elevates its status above the run of the mill, boy meets girl stories that pay little attention to how the film looks.
Mancuso’s feature debut, though flawed and with a few rough edges and inconsistencies in narrative structure, has a lot of beauty that should be appreciated. Apart from the romantic narrative of the film, which by the way was co-written by Mancuso along with Dan Lagana, he also attempts to portray his own engagement with Brazilian identity.
He does this several times, switching from English to Portuguese even on a date while talking about his mother’s feijoada. His Brazilian influences are evident in the musical arrangements of the film; bossa nova and samba are present throughout the film, and there is a side-splitting scene in which he gets drunk on cachaça – one of the strongest drinks in Brazil – which is likely the highest in any American movie.
Mancuso also touches on the more complicated aspects of this issue, such as the fact that his mother Maria, who is played by Mancuso’s mother, has been opposed to him marrying anyone but a Brazilian. He shares the experience of Haley’s parents, who assume that, like their Hispanic housekeeper, he is an uneducated American who speaks only Spanish, which makes Rudy think if he is supposed to correct their misunderstanding or remain polite.
Most likely, several second-generation and third-generation children of immigrants will find desired facets of the story in Mancuso’s film but, simultaneously, it does feel quite unlike anything else because it so often happens that the Brazilian-American experience remains on the periphery of Hollywood’s eye.
This celebratory mood is also apparent in Mancuso’s bonds with his mother, who portrays a character in the film that he himself stole. Not even dates with Isabella, whom Rudy somehow sees as a more idealized version of what could be, or even the good girlfriend Haley who is too ambitious to even consider our protagonist’s future plans, are as lively as their relationship in the film. He has thoughts of wandering from his mother after university but it s quite plain that he is quite attached to her in the first place.
Although she may seem to brush off his creative endeavors and his dating choices, which sound like the responses from quite a few of our parents, he very much has a close relationship with his mother. Senior credits are dedicated to Mancuso’s family archive, which artfully flows over the credit titles of the movie.
That is why the whole “Música” project feels like a love letter not to her, but to the music itself and to the culture that inspired him. The intensity portrayed in the storyline makes “Música” more than an averagely written love story. It’s about love where people don’t expect it, it’s about music which can be found in the most unexpected places, and it’s about family and culture.
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- Genre: Comedy, Romance
- Country: United States
- Director: Rudy Mancuso
- Cast: Rudy Mancuso, Camila Mendes, Francesca Reale
