Dzi Croquettes is both a tribute and a terrific entertainment.
80
Village VoiceErnest Hardy
Village VoiceErnest Hardy
It's the mind-blowing performance footage (and there's lots of it) that makes this a must-see film.
75
Slant MagazineDiego Semerene
Slant MagazineDiego Semerene
What's easy to appreciate in the documentary, however, is the way it reassembles the Dzi Croquettes' trajectory without polishing off its jagged edges. It's through their brilliance and their flaws that they become muses.
Resembling an all-male late-20th-century version of the Ziegfeld Follies, the cabaret group Dzi Croquettes used an empowering sexuality to counter Brazil's military dictatorship. Dzi Croquettes -- the Documentary is Tatiana Issa and Raphael Alvarez's pleasure-packed exploration of the group's impact.
60
Time Out
Time Out
Essentially a queer-cabaret-cum-performance-art-spectacle, the Croquettes went from local phenomenon to international sensation, opening up sexual mores in then-repressive Brazil and wowing Paris before their AIDS-fueled downfall.
If the film doesn't measure up as a piece of historical scholarship, it does manage to be a rather touching exploration of the troupe's life cycle: achieving notoriety, then being torn apart by fame, then being destroyed by forces beyond its control.