High Art (1991)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

hyped garbage

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is a true masterpiece. One that brings together Greco-Roman culture, traditionalism vs modernism and the struggle of indigenous cultures against global capitalism, mirrors as mystical adjuncts to mundane life, future shock and so much more...The opening scene: the camera shows a woman in the window of a house. The camera moves back and we see that the house is being demolished by bulldozers. The woman is crying hysterically, and her face is full of anguish.. or is that a state of spiritual ecstasy? We can't easily tell the difference, as the Knieper music score modulates with a Mishima-like nervousnous. The camera moves up and higher, and we see the poor woman's home is an insignificant sacrifice in the cause of the towering skyscrapers and ultra-modern urban business landscape. The changing face of Brazil..The photographer main character is a witness, who occasionally, reluctantly 'steps out of the frame' and takes part in the great collision of colour and experience of Brazilian life, mostly focussing on the theme of 'evading death', which is said to be a 'male illusion' but which is intimately connected to survival - from the street junkies and prostitutes to the 'train surfer' youths he seeks out. Our encounter with Greek themes of manliness and justice and, most of all, tragedy and revenge, comes when the main character photographs an attempted robbery and a street 'duel' with knives that leaves 2 people dead at the hands of a man who appears to be of substance, and who is known to us only as 'Hermes' - the name of a Greek god and a clear allusion to Dumas's Three Musketeers. Debt is a theme 'we do like the Greeks and the Romans', 'you owe me', 'my debt is paid', 'I have come to pay my debt', masculinity is another (the disgust felt towards a man who murders women and marks their faces), and also revenge - blood for blood.The mirror - used as a training tool when training with a knife, but behind the mirror a young woman observes disapprovingly. She is us, or a part of ourselves, that has ceased to be sensation-seeking witness and has taken an active stake in the horrible nitty-gritty of the world of real life and flesh. We observe much as she does, except from behind the camera.. There is also karma - a fat rapist with a penchant for stabbing people downwards in the heart meets the same fate, the last words he hears being unintentionally a version of the torrid threats he himself used to issue. All along, there is the nervousness, the fear, the theme of being outside or inside, always reminding us of the smashing of the house and its walls of safety. After our hero exacts revenge for the sake of his friend, he feels himself a total and complete outsider, and his photography habits change so that he photographs the mundane human experience of love between a man and a woman. No longer does he photograph the human juggling with imminent death: he has experienced that as an insider but has changed. And yet he can't go back...At the end, Hermes is of course the protector of travellers but the hero becomes an unwilling nomad who really seeks stability and married life, but can no longer have it. Like Hermes himself, who wants to return to his own country... Very moving, and brilliant.

Whoever owns this movie please release on DVD. This is a cult type movie centered around knife fighting. The back story, cinematography, and allure of a dangerous earthly South America draws the viewer into what is probably Peter Coyote's most interesting work. Highly recommended! Very few movies transmit the feeling of a place as well as this movie does so visually. I have been searching for this movie for sometime and wonder why it hasn't been released on DVD. Early Walter Salles is much better than most of what is being shot today. Coyote plays a photographer living in Rio that avenges the death of a prostitute friend and goes on a journey through South America to do so. In the process of this his character learns to fight with knifes and becomes involved in an underworld whose rules he is forced to adapt to and survive.

I viewed this movie a few years ago and was impressed by the training scenes, however, I have always wondered where to get knives like the ones featured in the film, I cannot for the life of me remember their names even. Any help would be appreciated. I am a budding knife collector and follower of the art of knife fighting, I just wish there were more of it in the film. Anyone know of similar flicks out there I could check out? This is my first time ever submitting anything to this site and can't wait to start talking movies with people, they are after all, one of my greatest passions. Another reason for me to like this movie I guess is that I am in school to become a professional photographer!

A film that is extremely evocative - so many exciting nuances. It is unforgettable - a pity that the actor who played the "knife expert" is seen more. One of Peter Coyote's best.An unusual cast - many contrasts. The photography is outstanding. A haunting experience....