Brazilian documentarian João Moreira Salles’ dazzling true-world dreamscape “In the Intense Now” (No Intenso Agora) hallucinates an edition of the history that succeeded the worldwide revolutions of 1968, with his mother’s amateur footage from the 1966 Cultural Revolution in China as well as on home ground with the military coup in Brazil, eddying outward to student revolt in Paris, up through the days of the Paris Spring.
Salles excavates the treasure of unseen archival footage into a dazzling, drenching montage of worldwide sensation, with the sensory ambition of Chris Marker. Fire, fury, frenzy, fraternity. Salles’ narration remains deeply personal even as the kaleidoscopic imagery bursts forth in grandiloquent poetry. Cataclysm awaits. So much history ahead. Such dense, ordered beauty behind. 127m. (Ray Pride)
“In the Intense Now” opens Friday, March 2 at Facets.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
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