O Auto da Compadecida

O Auto da compadecida is comedy about survival, we saw the things through the eyes of João and Chicó, both of them represent a great part of a invisible Brazil, poor and simple people that do everything to survive, we saw that even in the poor places there will have a huge social inequality. To survive this people even have to fool the Devil.

One of my favorite Brazilian movies. Matheus Nachtergaele and Selton Mello did a terrific job together. The movie is funny, colorful, engaging and has a little bit of culture from the northeast of Brazil. Definitely a must watch movie.

O Auto de Compadecida is a funny film, in more ways than one. At first, I was baffled by the storyline, or rather, by the lack of a storyline such as I'm used to. If you expect the first five or ten minutes of a film being devoted to introducing the characters, their backgrounds, and their passions, you'll find yourself puzzled by this flick. There is hardly any introduction or explanation, and such as is offered appears exactly at the appropriate moments. The film is also funny in content. The main characters are a teller of unlikely stories and a schemer of impossible schemes, who never reach the third dimension, but then, there's no need for that: the burlesque quality and speed of the scenes thrive on these two men being cartoon characters rather than real people. And truly, an in-depth character would be highly out of place in a scene which involves Jesus, Mary, and Lucifer doodling in the margins of a book--using blood as ink, naturally. Highly enjoyable.

It is amazing how, from the very beginning of this movie, you notice the influence that Terry Gilliam has had on this Brazilian director. The movie has the twists and craziness you would expect of "Adventures of Baron Munchausen", but from the third world, portraying incredible well the way people try to survive where there is not much for them anyway. "O Auto da Compadecida" is definitely a very good movie, with talented actors and unexpected plot. Must-see.

When the 4-chapter mini-series was announced by Globo network, few people expected it to be THAT good, for the simple reason that nothing that good had been done in Brazilian television in the previous 15 years. The adaptation is efficient, departing very little from Cabral de Mello Neto's text and mood, the direction, scenography and art direction are beautiful, the humour is well balanced with adventure and drama, everything works well. But the real treat you get watching this is Nachtergale's performance as Joao Grilo. This is the production that made everyone agree that he is the best actor of his generation by a mile. Let me talk a little of what the story is about. It is not really a 'fantasy' of the writer as some American viewers (understandably) thought. The play's proposal is to be an adaptation of several texts from the tradition of 'cordel literature', typical of the Brazilian northeast (where the play is set). Those texts are mostly long poems that translate the folklore of that region. It is, of course, a very catholic area, but in a very peculiar way. Jesus ('Manuel'), Mary ('the Merciful') and the devil ARE common characters of those folk stories, and they are as 'accessibile' to people as the movie shows in Brazilian Folklore. Also from 'Cordel literature' comes the character of 'Joao Grilo'. Anyone who sees this movie and don't know Grilo should watch for Shakespeare's 'Henry IV' (the character Falstaff) and Moliere's 'Scapino'. It is sort of a universal character – the court's fool, and doesn't belong to Arraes, Mello Neto or even to Brazilian Folklore. So it is not really someone's fantasy – it is the fantasy of an anonymous collective, the people from Brazil's northeastern 'sertao'. It is a great movie anyway, I just thought people would like to know the background.