Heleno

A Goritzia Filmes, RT Features, OGX and Downtown Filmes presentation. Created by Jose Henrique Fonseca, Rodrigo Teixeira, Eduardo Pop, Rodrigo Santoro. Directed by Jose Henrique Fonseca. Script, Fonseca, Felipe Braganca, Fernando Castets.With: Rodrigo Santoro, Alinne Moraes, Angie Cepeda.In attempting to mount soccer's response to "Raging Bull," Brazilian biopic "Heleno" offers both a cultivated feeling of noir as well as an antihero who will do the job: Heleno p Freitas, the pre-Pele idol of Rio p Janeiro sports fans and, like Mike LaMotta, a guy as famous for his violent temper as his for prowess around the area. But all of the sincere Scorsese references -- moody, mist-shrouded cinematography, homemovie sequences, operatic accents -- are ultimately distractions inside a story that manages to lose momentum in painful, protracted fashion. Chances for limited U.S. exposure appear remote, despite Rodrigo Santoro's bravura perf within the title role. Santoro constitutes a sleekly beautiful Heleno, whom helmer Jose Henrique Fonseca selects introducing in the most ravaged condition like a prematurely old guy, destroyed by without treatment syphilis along with a years-lengthy dependence on ether (that they sometimes appears breathing via a handkerchief throughout his many moments of stress). The film's opening shot ought to be Heleno looking vacantly in to the camera appears a questionable choice knowing in the start that this is when Heleno is headed waters down the impact of his eventual ruination because he transitions from national hero and lady-killer to cadaverous asylum inmate. So the intermittent expensive-forwards from Heleno's heyday within the '40s, when he's the unquestioned star of Brazilian soccer and, most probably, the guy who does lead his country to some World Cup. The first moments, however, using their grand, operatic score, are gripping: Heleno is really a brat who disparages his teammates as incompetents ("I play alone") and leads a rococo lovelife within the coffee shops, bookstores of Rio, juggling women like soccer balls. A couple of individuals women can come to rue your day they met him: Diamantina (Angie Cepeda), a luscious nightclub singer whose entrance inevitably recalls those of Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" and Sylvia, who marries Heleno and bears him a young child, however for whom he'll never entirely forsake Diamantina. The tragedy of "Heleno" is just one of time, as World war 2 pre-empts the 2 World Cups by which Heleno might have performed, by 1950 his personal devils have started to eliminate his career. "Heleno" thus stays inordinate time using its subject within the institution that he's eventually committed, the supposed hero from the story just as one object of pity lengthy of all time known as for, significantly speaking. The film's pictures are frequently spectacular, and also the match sequences recall not just the ring moments in "Raging Bull" but the immediacy of 2006 docu "Zidane: A twenty-first century Portrait." But Fonseca comes with an on-again, off-again relationship together with his camera although some of d.p. Walter Carvalho's shots are glorious, others appear pedestrian so that as ill regarded as the dwelling from the movie. Tech credits are usually good, particularly the seem work.Camera (B&W, DCP), Walter Carvalho editor, Sergio Mekler music, Berna Ceppas production designer, Marlise Storchi costume designer, Rita Murtinho seem (Dolby Digital 5.1), Michael Semanick, Rodrigo Noronha seem designer, Waldir Xavier. Examined at Toronto Film Festival (Contemporary World Cinema), Sept. 14, 2011. Running time: 117 MIN. Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com