On the day of his birthday, Santiago (Juan Luiz Galiardo) hires a team of actors and actresses to play as if they were members of his family. Along the day, the personality and sentiments of each member of his fake family is disclosed to the viewer, showing their true feelings. This weird and surrealistic story is a great metaphor with the real society. In a simple way, it can be understood as a powerful and lonely man, who somehow misses his family and hires a group of actors and actresses to perform, on the day of his birthday, as if they were his lost family, as a kind of weird celebration. This type of interpretation leads the viewer to a great review of the hypocrisy of the institution `family'. But if we extend this idea further and further, the lonely and rich man might be a government, a powerful dictator, an employer, a manager, trying to build his own perfect world, represented by his family. However, even though providing all the instructions, orders, good conditions and salaries for the participants, his world may not work the way he wants. Human beings are not machines: they may use masks, hiding their real feelings, following a social behavior ruled by the society or the system. But in the end, persons have free will and even flaws in their characters and behaviors and the system may not work perfectly as planned. In the end, Santiago applauds the great performance of the players and concludes that it is better off be part of an imperfect `family' (could be the world, the society etc.) than to live alone (or be dead
). My vote is eight.
Title (Brazil): `Segredos em Família' (`Secrets in Family')
Title (Brazil): `Segredos em Família' (`Secrets in Family')