O Auto da Compadecida

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 da Compadecida," commonly translated as "A Dog's Will" (a translation which, to my ears, waters down the significance, the gravitas, and the poetry of the title in the original) is a sure-classic and a phenomenon of the Brazilian cinema and popular culture of the recent past and of modernity in the rural communities of its countryside. The film has marked the heart and the soul of an entire generation since the dawn of the twenty-first century, and features lines and words still common-parlance among the average Brazilian (e.g., João Grilo's : "Não sei não... Só sei que foi assim. ("I don't know--all I know it was so"))

All in all, the film portrays themes of class, spiritual feelings, and some legendary figures of the folklore and of the past of the Brazilian drylands and Northeast. In a way, "O Auto da Compadecida" memorializes through the friendship of Chicó and João Grilo an entire generation and past, an entire dialectic and language, all done with outstanding actors, actresses, and acting overall.

This is surely a landmark of Brazilian cinema, imagination, and one that is sure to delight those open to receive its humor and themes of love, spirituality, redemption, and forgiveness.

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.

Before watching it, get this straight !

1- This movie is an adaptation from a original play and smaller works from the same author (1955).

2- This is not how Brazil is today in the country side but how it was at the beginning of the 20 century (circa 1920). Sort of Brazilian Wild West (in our case Wild East).

3- This was a TV series much longer and was reduced to almost 1/3 of its original size for the theaters and DVD due to the great viewers ratings of the TV series.

4- Much of the jokes and characters are local to the region shown in the movie: Sertão Brasileiro.

5- To understanding the movie you should really know Brazilian Portuguese, some local accents related to the plot and the colloquial words used make it very tricky to translate, and in many cases, impossible. I watched also with English subtitles, and believe me: most of the jokes are gone.

6- There is no parallels between this movie and "Cidade de Deus" (City of God). You can argue about the technical aspects of them but for me, is like comparing "much ado about nothing" (from Shakespeare) and American Pie. To really appreciate "much ado..." you you must master the English Victorian world completely (of course... its out of my league. Eng. is not my first !). Or like old Italian comedies from the 60 and 70 where many joke relay on gestures that a foreign just cant understand.

7- And about the religious ending, its a joke inside the joke. And of course, if you cut a work that takes 3 1/2 hours to just 90 minutes and thinks that its the same thing.

...for example, for a native Brazilian, its just hilarious to see a black Jesus, a Zelot Devil and organized one following rules by the book.

In the other hand, you could compare this movie to DOGMA (Kevin Smith). And its way better than DOGMA.

Thats all folks...

And of course... I'm a Brazilian.

It's hard to find actors with as much charisma and on-screen chemistry as this movie's main duo. Throw in an impeccable script and various Cameos by Brazil's biggest and brightest stars, and you'll have one of the funniest movies ever made (and my personal favorite amongst the post-1980s Brazilian productions. The only downside of this movie is that it was originally a four-hour TV mini-series; the two-hour version is inevitably condensed. If you have the option of choosing between them, go for the complete work. If not... well, half the laugh is still better than no laugh.