América

A Russian woman lives a sad life in seaside small Portuguese village Cova do Vapor, married with a Portuguese scoudrel and her son, who obviously has social problems. The man works in a crime gang that deals with illegal immigrants and fake passports with two or three other Portuguese forgers, two Spaniards (the leader is his Andalusian ex-wife!) and a Brazilian (who appears wearing a jersey of Flamengo, the very popular football/soccer team). Moving from drama to comedy, from routine to sudden violent waves (not only metaphorically), the film is a portrait of changing contemporary Europe and brings seriously to the big screen many important problems and issues: immigration, family, marriage, crime, racism, sex, violence. There are only nice things to say about this Portuguese-Russian-Brazilian-Spanish production: perfect direction, excellent actors, good dialogs in at least three different languages (Portuguese, Russian and Spanish). The cold and detailed cinematography is amazing.