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As director/writer Gustavo Dahl tries to warn audiences that the film is a mere coincidental work and has nothing to do with reality, one can't escape seeing many truthful facts portrayed in this puzzling conspiracy story. It happens in Brazil, fact, but it's the story of a fictional country named Valdívia, a nation ruled by the military and one that has good business relations with Brazil, and that's where their president (Anselmo Duarte) goes to sign a lucrative deal. But the mysterious death of one of his minister causes a turmoil of events where he becomes sick, his military cabinet investigates the case, an American reporter tries to crack the case and no one and nothing is what appears.

"Tensão no Rio" is a strange film that works because Mr. Dahl managed it to not make a mess of it, exploring many issues faced by the nation during the early stages of opening to democracy after two decades of the military regime and that fact was triggering different and obscure reactions on the corridors of power and people felt deeply uncertain if there ever be the return of democracy. That whole anxiety and fear is evident here, even though we are a watching a fictional country, one of those republic of bananas with their shady and corrupt schemes in that decade and before.

Just to show some examples of how the movie wasn't disconnected from reality: the car bomb that kills the minister right in the opening is a clear reference of the Riocentro failed coup that happened in the previous year; the American reporter (Ira Lee) is seen reading a book on the Watergate case at the same time on TV there are news on Valdívia's crisis and some of the images used were from a documentary on El Salvador during the U. S. intervention helping the armed forces to fight the Communist guerilla - it was amazing that I watched that Oscar nominated documentary on the same month as this film, so it was easy to regonise the dramatic scene where a student is killed by the soldiers while surrending himself. Mr. Dahl didn't need to fabricate much to compose his story, life was just extreme and absurd as any fictional film made everywhere around the globe.

At times there's some confusion due to the excessive number of characters and most of the female characters were underwritten, except for the Brazilian commercial representative, and the minister's widow (Lillian Lemmertz); and a majority of great names such as Raul Cortez, Paulo César Peréio and José Lewgow only appear as cameos. They're all good, but the highlight of the movie goes to the always impecable Nelson Xavier, playing a ruthless, intelligent colonel who knows a lot more about everything than what he shows.

It isn't much thrilling as it could be, and there's an odd humor impermeating everything that one could almost think it's a comedy. It's not, it's quite dramatic and it works. I was surprised with this one in a good way, because it had the potential of becoming a disaster of sorts as many films from that decade were. It's an engaging movie where the great fun is to find out who's behind the mystery and why (a little bit obvious, I must say) and it's also great to take a look back and see a distant reality and how things worked in the world of politics. It feels really genuine. 7/10.