Vidas Secas - Nach Eden ist es weit

One of the 5 best brazilian movies of all times. That's the opinion of the brazilian critics, and became obvious for everyone who see the film. A precise recreation of the Graciliano Ramos masterpiece by the "father" of "Cinema Novo". Definitively, a classic.

An itinerant family's search for a better life seems to lead nowhere. The husband finds work as a cowhand, the wife wants nothing more than a leather bed to sleep in.

The stark, black and white cinematography with which the sun-bleached, barren landscape was shot underscores the poverty the family is trying to escape. Kudos to the director who was able to coax an admirable performance from the family's dog. It's a totally engaging film w/ effectively subdued performances from the principals. Reminiscent of Italian Neo-Realist cinema, this makes for rewarding viewing, a cure for the summer blockbuster syndrome.

When it comes to quote unquote "classic" Neo-Realist cinema, Vidas Secas may go harder in a manner of speaking when it comes to depicting the harsh and unrelentingly grim conditions of the working poor as exemplified by this semi ill educated family, though it has much more of its success on the direction than the Italians or Satyajit Ray had in their works.

I think why their films stand up as greater than this film is that those directors had a... I don't know it sensitivity yo their subjects is the word (maybe it is that) but a certain complex yet simple and uncanny ability to find in the characters and actors in their stories deep wells of humanity, and there was some warmth to balance out the misery in those stories (think of the father and son in Bicycle Thieves or the little Apur in Pather Panchali). This film is all desolation and, as the kids asks as subtly as a brick to the face, a banal hell.

This isn't to say Vidas Secas doesn't have value today as a work of dark and poetic humanism, and its director Pereira dos Santos elevates the material through his use of long or extended takes on moments and his close ups are often extraordinary. There's this palpable sense of desperation that comes from how he shows the environment and how he let's it frankly speak for itself; what can grow out in these fields where things are dying and cattle are for no other use than being branded and to be herded until death, after all. And there is sympathy for this father despite/because of his ill education and critical thinking when it comes to his boss or being imprisoned - he's no less averse to being exploited than the cattle or animals on the farm.

I read someone say that this film seemed to come quite late or after the wave of working class focused Neo Realistic dramas, and perhaps there's something to that. But depicting a family and their dire straits isn't necessarily a method that has to stop just because things are (seemingly) better in other countries. There will always be those, especially on farms and villages of countries like Brazil, hard times and labor exploitation, and there's always an integrity to Peirera dos Santos's images.

If it isn't a film I'd revisit as much as like Umberto D (sorry but not sorry - Flike > Baleia, also poor Baleia, you know it won't work out for him because he's the happy one in this story) or Paisan, it's nevertheless an important film not because We Are Showing These People That Makes It Matter, but because the direction shows family and society through a lens that makes us bear witness and ask us to simply see others we (meaning us working class middle class dopes) normally turn our eyes in apathy. There's nothing to be apathetic about in this film - it's cold and brutal and a drag, but it's never boring.

Vidas Secas had that same neorealist, slice of life feel that Bicycle Thieves and Pather Panchali have, but it didn't do quite as much for me thematically. The big focus was on how it's very difficult to survive and work in the barren Brazilian desert. The thing the film does best is establish a clear atmosphere - the slow long shots of the expansive desert and realistic, character driven story do a lot to emphasize how difficult it is to live there. It's not a film where I was emotionally drawn into the lives of the characters, the way I was in Bicycle Thieves, and I found the major messages of the movie to be muddled (aside from the main theme of how difficult it is to survive there). The repetition of the scene asking for work early in the film was really odd, and the random pivot to the older boy asking questions about hell and getting into that can be explained but came a bit out of nowhere for me, as up to that point the focus was on the father's attempt to work and the family struggles. In general, it just felt like a well shot but somewhat shallow slow, slice of life Brazilian film. Maybe I've just been spoiled by some of the great neorealist films we've watched though, and I'm sure there are some elements I didn't notice.

As the great director Nelson Pereira dos Santos was, he delivered a consistent movie on the harsh life conditions of scarcity and hunger in Northeastern Brazilian hinterland, adapting to cinema a major classic of the country's literature by Graciliano Ramos. Cinematography is spectacular and certainly this paramount Cinema Novo film inspired a later classic of Brazilian cinema: Cinema, aspirins and vultures. The footage shot with animals in Barren Lives is particularly impressive. Baleia is a charismatic character, being decisive on how much moving the film may be.