Bye Bye Brasil

SYNOPSIS: A small band of circus performers drift through the hinterlands of 1970s Brazil looking for opportunity and freedom.

CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER: Escaping your everyday life and throwing caution to the wind to chase your dreams. Only to find out that your dreams aren't what you thought and that there is a big difference between lust and love.

PROS AND CONS: This is an interesting film on several levels. It shows a part of the world that is quickly disappearing. The idea that you can run off into undeveloped country and live off your wits and the kindness / stupidity of others is quickly fading in modern society. That wasn't the case in 1970s Brazil where the vast interior was full or opportunity and little else.

In this film a young man and his pregnant wife flee the poverty of rural Brazil to join the CARNIVAL ROLIDEI, a rag-tag group consisting of a charismatic con man, his dancer / prostitute girlfriend and a mute strong-man. They travel the dirt roads of Brazil, seeking peasants that are easily entertained by their simple tricks and lusty burlesque shows. Along the way, the young man and his wife come to question their fidelity and their expectations about life and one another.

The film is shot on location and the performances are very good. There is a surreal quality to the imagery that owes a tip of the hat to Federico Fellini. There is also something about the Porteguese language that is very lyrical, especially the title song that is heard throughout the film and over the end credits.

The underlying message is that freedom is not an easy thing to find. Escaping from the trappings of modern society, escaping from the trappings of your own lifestyle and the escape from the ones you love is almost impossible. None of these characters wants to be tied down, but they are tied to the desires that are at their core. They all learn from each other in the end.

This film reminds me why I have the desire to take off and see new lands where I have never been and be amazed at the unknown that I have never seen, and why in the end, I always return to my home, where I feel safe.

I first saw this film around 1985, when it was still new, and before I started studying and visiting Brazil seriously. I did not remember much at all, probably because I did not understand the significance of what I was seeing. Now, after four visits to Brazil (mostly Amazon and Northeast), it makes a lot more sense, and I will be recommending it to students.

The movie was made near the end of the (1964-85) military period, when political discourse was possible but still needed to be done cautiously. So the film addresses serious concerns about the government's programs to encourage migration, but it does so with humor and finesse.

It is a brilliant film, and gives some insight to the ongoing suffering of the sertao, the cultural context of forro, the folly of development in Brasilia, and the drivers of deforestation in the Amazon.

This fantastic movie tell the history of a small caravan of artists that crosses an immense area inside Brazil accomplishing circus shows for simple and poor people. In the road, a couple of beggars that escapes from the drought of the northeast of Brazil associates to the group, and they are going all to seek the wealth and the success in new " Eldorado Brasileiro ": the Amazonian. A film human but also controversial, with a fort social content, that treats of problematic themes of the Brazilian reality: the social poverty, the migration and the environmental destruction.

More than a discussion on which are the best Brazilian films ever, "Bye-bye Brazil" is certainly one of the most important films made in Brazil. It is a deep sink in Brazilian soul and a portrait of serious changes in Brazilian society in late 70's. Modern vs traditional, pride vs vulnerability, love vs need, arts vs market, big town vs deep country, it is a very layered and encompassing film, abroad movie far from formulae and fancy, a must see for everyone who are interested in understanding and knowing Brazil.

By far Bye Bye Brazil is an essential Brazilian picture, perhaps among the top-ten of modern era at least, it owes too much for an awesome premise allied a well-drafted screenplay grounded in an illiterate language of the priceless main character Lorde Cigano (José Wilker) an epitome of the Brazilian trickster, together with a tawdry-hot lady Salomé (Betty Faria) and their faithful black sidekick Andorinha (Principe Nabor) traveling into smallest cities in the largest northeast of the Brazil, when they randomly meet a silly accordion player Ciço (Fabio Jr.) and his pregnant wife Dasdô (Zaira Zambelli).

They usually jumping into another town, unfortunately the time in changing with the advent of TV, also the harder drought in that surroundings did not allowed sell any ticket for money, instead they had to received some goods from the scarce audience, thus Lorde Cigano hears some news about a new road labeled Trans Amazon recently built linking into far off Altamira city a sort of the gate of the Amazon properly where according the source lays out the future of the country, beyond the far frontier where the money is, in this longest journey they stumble with the real natives, reaching in a crowed and cluttered city they didn't find any fortune whatsoever, although the turning point of their lives, then after more downs rather ups they split at last.

This fantastic picture conceived by the avant-garde director Cacá Diegues, exposes the real Brazil in turning of the seventies a changing period of time, a self-portrait of Brazilian people as a whole, it was produced by the old Brazilian clan of filmmakers Luis Carlos Barreto Productions with vast expertise in own cinema as DONA FLOR E SEUS DOIS MARIDOS, INOCÊNCIA, VIDAS SECAS, O HOMEM QUE DESAFIOU O DIABO just to name a few, a notoriously a true Brazilian triumph.

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 1995 / How many: 3 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5.