A Dog's Will

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 de Compadecida is a funny film, in more ways than one. At first, I was baffled by the storyline, or rather, by the lack of a storyline such as I'm used to. If you expect the first five or ten minutes of a film being devoted to introducing the characters, their backgrounds, and their passions, you'll find yourself puzzled by this flick. There is hardly any introduction or explanation, and such as is offered appears exactly at the appropriate moments. The film is also funny in content. The main characters are a teller of unlikely stories and a schemer of impossible schemes, who never reach the third dimension, but then, there's no need for that: the burlesque quality and speed of the scenes thrive on these two men being cartoon characters rather than real people. And truly, an in-depth character would be highly out of place in a scene which involves Jesus, Mary, and Lucifer doodling in the margins of a book--using blood as ink, naturally. Highly enjoyable.

"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.

It is amazing how, from the very beginning of this movie, you notice the influence that Terry Gilliam has had on this Brazilian director. The movie has the twists and craziness you would expect of "Adventures of Baron Munchausen", but from the third world, portraying incredible well the way people try to survive where there is not much for them anyway. "O Auto da Compadecida" is definitely a very good movie, with talented actors and unexpected plot. Must-see.