Guerra de Canudos

In the country of Bahia about 1860, a man called Antônio Vicente Mendes Maciel, known by the nickname of Antônio Conselheiro (note.: 'conselheiro' in Portuguese means 'advisor') drifts through the remote rural interior of Brazil (called 'sertão brasileiro'), building churches, restoring cemeteries and collecting followers, with the opposition of the Catholic Church and the Brazilian elite. He claims to be one apostle, and his legion is composed by miserable illiterate simple persons. In 1889, Marechal Deodoro da Fonseca proclaims the Republic of Brazil and Antônio Conselheiro blames the republic for the misery of the forgotten 'sertão brasileiro'. In 1892, Antônio Conselheiro founds the monarchic 'Império do Belo Monte' in Canudos, with 20,000 followers, having an independent government with their own laws and moral values. The Federal Government feels threatened and sends a first expedition to fight in Canudos, being the federal troops defeated. A second expedition is sent and also defeated. A third expedition, commanded by Colonel Moreira Cesar, o Corta-Pescoços ('cut-necks') is also defeated. The fourth and last expedition, commanded by General Artur Oscar, is sent with 6,000 soldiers first plus 4,000 replacement and finally kills all the followers of Antonio Conselheiro. Antonio Conselheiro dies on September, 22nd 1897 and the 'Império do Belo Monte' finally falls on October, 5th 1897. After one year of war, 20,000 followers of Antônio Conselheiro and 5,000 soldiers die in these battles and in accordance with Brazilian writer Euclides da Cunha in his book 'Os Sertões', Canudos was the unique war with no survivors, their inhabitants never surrender and resisted until the fall of the last man. In the final moment of the battle, two men, a boy and an old man were the last survivors and were still fighting against the armed troop.

'Guerra de Canudos' is an epic and dramatizes a historic event through the drama of a rural family composed by Zé Lucena (Paulo Betti), Penha (Marieta Severo), the older daughter Luiza (Cláudia Abreu) and their younger son and daughter. Antônio Conselheiro is performed by the excellent actor, director and cinema critic José Wilker. The songs were composed by Edu Lobo, and there are 5,000 figurants. Paulo Betti was born in São Paulo and Cláudia Abreu and Marieta Severo are from Rio de Janeiro and they have special training to speak using the expressions and accent of people from the northeastern of Brazil (Bahia). 'Guerra de Canudos' is a worthwhile entertainment for viewers who want to learn a little of history of Brazil. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): 'Guerra de Canudos' ('War of Canudos')

It is a film based on the conflict between the state of Brazil and a group of settlers (estimated in 6000) who had established their own community in the Northeastern state of Bahia, named Canudos. There were many attempts to suppress that rebellion by the military and they were unsuccessful; the result was a tragic end that saw a devastating killing of almost 6000 miserable people who abode that village, this being the deadliest massacre in Brazil to this day. Antônio Conselheiro was a mystic spiritual preacher of those days and he peregrinated those lands preaching a doctrine, building and reforming churches through many cities and valleys around. He was very unsatisfied with the so called New Republic installed in Brazil in Deodoro da Fonseca's government. Conselheiro used to wander through villages and cities in many states in the northeast of Brazil and in 1893 he decided to put down roots in a place called Canudos, interior of the state of Bahia. Because of his announcing promises of better future and opposing strongly against the state's New Republic thousands of new residents were attracted to that area and he soon gathered around 6000 people. The film Guerra de Canudos is a well made film that portrays Conselheiro from the beginning of his journeys to his fateful end by the military who were enraged by their strong endurance. Good performances by actors Paulo Betti as Zé Lucena, José Wilker as Antonio Conselheiro and an outstanding performance by Cláudia Abreu as Luiza.

The Brazilian History is full of mentions about the Canudos War, but there was no movie about it until this one. And I should say it is really good. The fabulous cast, the battle scenes, everything take the audience to the reality. It is one of the first good moments of the Brazilian cinema renassaince of the 90's. Very interesting plot and production. Special congratulations for the screenplay, that made a so complex and detail fact very tight and connected.

The film tagline reads (in my English translation). "Brazil has been waiting for this film for a hundred years." Well, while the events depicted in the film did take place a little over 100 years before, the film-going public wasn't anxiously waiting for this tragic matter to be retold. Having said that, the film is a major player in the so-called "Renaissance of Brazilian cinema." It does deal with one of the most tragic events in the country's history, and tells the story exceedingly well. Featuring an outstanding cast, and directed by the respected Sergio Rezende, this movie when released was the best example to date that Brazil was indeed capable of producing a quality full-blown epic film with convincing drama, emotion, rhythm, and great cinematic beauty. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical epics.

Sérgio Rezende's Guerra de Canudos unfolds like a visual lament carved into the scorched soil of the Brazilian backlands. The film's cinematography is not merely beautiful-it is searing, devotional, and cruel in its fidelity to the land. The Sertão, that ancient and biblical stretch of sun-bleached earth, is rendered with a painter's eye and a witness's gaze - captures the arid vastness with such aching precision that the dust itself seems to carry ancestral memory.

Light and shadow do not simply fall across the frame; they haunt it. The harsh glare of the sun, the brittle textures of cracked soil, the withering foliage-each image breathes the same dryness that fills the lungs of its characters.

In its narrative structure, Guerra de Canudos remains impressively loyal to the historical chronicles of Euclides da Cunha, embracing not just the facts, but the fevered grandeur of the events that he so prophetically recorded. The film eschews romanticization in favor of a haunting coherence-an elegy to the tragedy that befell a community in the margins of a newborn Republic.

Yet, within this narrative nobility lies the film's one notable flaw: a tendency toward didacticism. At times, the dialogue veers into the overly instructive, betraying a desire not only to move but to teach, to explain rather than evoke. This inclination-toward a moralizing fable rather than a meditative reckoning-momentarily interrupts the immersion. But such moments, while perceptible, are mercifully rare and do not eclipse the film's deeper poetic truths.

The cast breathes life into history with a fierce solemnity, each performance deeply rooted in the soil of suffering and belief. There is no theatrical excess here-only the quiet intensity of people bound by faith, hunger, and defiance.

Cláudia Abreu, in particular, emerges as a luminous presence amid the dust. Her portrayal is not simply "notable"-it is haunting. Her eyes reflecting the shadow of doom. She is less a character than a vessel for the feminine dimension of resistance, a silent psalm amid the roar of war.

Guerra de Canudos is not merely a historical recounting; it is an inquiry into the eternal. Through the figure of Antônio Conselheiro and his followers, the film explores the intersection of mysticism and social decay. Time in Canudos is not linear-it is apocalyptic. The community resists the progressivist logic of the Republic not from ignorance, but from a profound refusal to sever spirit from land.

Here, desire is replaced by belief, and modernity arrives not as salvation but as siege. The Republic, child of Enlightenment, plays the part of the monster-unwilling to tolerate a mode of life that sings in an older key. The massacre is not simply political-it is metaphysical. It is the obliteration of an anachronistic dream.

Guerra de Canudos is, at its heart, a cinematic act of remembrance-stoic, painful, and necessary. It dares to gaze upon the bones buried beneath the foundations of a nation. Even when it falters into moral overstatement, its sincerity never wanes. It is a film that mourns aloud, without shame, the price of nationhood paid in blood and dust.

In a landscape where national cinema too often clings to caricature or despair, Rezende offers something rarer: historical dignity. This is a film not to be consumed, but contemplated-like the silence after battle, like the sun that refuses to set on scorched earth. It reminds us that tragedy is not only an event-it is a wound that continues to shape the soul of a people.