Reflections of a Blender

A woman is found dead in her kitchen, and the account of what happened comes from the blender standing on the counter. The machine thinks, remembers and lays out the household from its own angle: its relationship with its owner, the people who came and went, and what happened that night. André Klotzel builds the whole film on that one idea and takes his comedy from it. The blender is jealous, judgemental and puts itself at the centre of the story it tells, which makes it an unreliable narrator. Its best perception is that domestic objects witness the most private moments people have. Ana Lúcia Torre plays the dead woman. Its flaw is that the premise, stretched to feature length, starts repeating. The mystery is thin, the reconstructions look cheap, and in the last act the film abandons its own game for straight melodrama. Who it is for: viewers who like strange narrators and Brazilian independent cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a realistic mystery.