Another Cinema Novo movie that I watched for the first time. It was the subject of the Film Analysis Club (Cinema with Theory) class, taught by Prof. Alisson Gutemberg, on 02/17/2022.
It is part of the second phase of Cinema Novo, when the theme revolved around large cities, the modernization of urban centers and the contrast between rich and poor.
Directed by Carlos Diegues, better known as Cacá Diegues, featuring Anecy Rocha (Luzia), Leonardo Villar (Jasão), Antônio Pitanga (Calunga) and Joel Barcellos (Inácio).
Luzia arrives in Rio de Janeiro, coming from the hinterland, in the interior of Alagoas, to meet her fiancé who had left the city a few years before. The only reference she had was that he lived in Morro da Mangueira. On the way up the hill, she meets Calunga, from the northeast, who will help her in her search. As she had an address in the South Zone where a wealthy family lived, she went there to look for a job, but she couldn't find it at first, having to find a place to stay. Then Inácio, a bricklayer, friend of Calunga, also a migrant from the northeast, enters the scene, who lets her stay in his cubicle for a few days. Finally, she finds Jason and she is disappointed with her fiancé's coldness. Jason had a life as a hired assassin, not wanting to involve Luzia in his daily life. He kills a senator and he is then wanted by the police. The end, as expected, is tragic (the poster itself indicates so).
Cacá Diegues focuses on the difficult life of the northeastern migrant in the 1960s, who left the arid backlands to try his luck in the big city. Once there, he has to live in the slums, working as domestic servants, in construction or doing odd jobs. It also shows that some will live off small scams, like the trickster Calunga, or turn to crime, like Jasão did. When the wealthy family from the South Zone appears, it is something distant, not even the name of the woman who attends Luzia is revealed to us, the spectators.
Diegues also shows in the film some references to cinema, such as the western in the scenes in which Jason appears and his two pistols in hand, including a photo of a wanted in the newspapers as in the wanted posters in western films. Another interesting scene is the delirium of Inácio running, interspersed with scenes of misery of the population on the outskirts of the city, which looks like a silent film.
There is still reference to Greek mythology with the name Jason of the character played by Leonardo Villar. Diegues would return to the theme with the film Orfeu, from 1999.
The growth and modernization of large Brazilian urban centers that began in the 1960s brought ills that we still live with today.
And as for the Brazilian political situation, the film makes it clear, in certain scenes, that the military was in power and flaunted their power with tanks and soldiers in the streets.
