Vidas Secas

This film of Nelson Pereira dos Santos and another one called "Oz fuzis" or 'The guns' by Ruy Guerra are my favourite Brazilian movies. These films have mirrored the films of Mrinal Sen and Adoor Gopalakrishnan made in India at about the same time. The realism they offer and the rather unconventional use of the soundtrack affects the viewer, though seriously lacking in production quality. I know that most critics tend to classify these two Brazilian films as representative of the Cinema Nouvo, but I prefer to see the two as unusually impressive cinema, little affected by Hollywood. Vidas Secas in a way brings back memories of neo-realism in de Sica's "Bicycle Thief."

The later work of dos Santos failed to impress me. He seems to have burned out--improving in technical qualities but losing out on artistic vision.

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.

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.

Typical representative of the call "Cinema Novo" in Brazil, that film is beautiful. With picture in black and white, the history was based on a classic of the Brazilian literature and it rotates around a family it expels of your earth for the dry climate, with thirst and hunger, migrating for an inhospitable landscape in search of a better life. Even a character so difficult of representing, the female dog " Baleia ", it has an anthological interpretation.

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.