Antonio das Mortes

If you watch Hollywood movies only, this one may be hard for you. But it will be a great experience for some lunatics (like me) who believe in the power and in the freedom of the cinematographic images.

The subject is Brazil, the conflicts of a country that crossed a violent dictatorship at the time the movie was made. All the characters are representing groups of the brazilian society. Some of them, like the cangaceiros (poor and revolted people who became outlaws in the early 20th century), and the Saint (portrait of a blended religion that exists in Brazil, with elements of catholicism and african religions) are taken in a mythological approach. The delirious Glauber Rocha takes his characters to moral edges, leads them to crazy bang-bang scenes, to samba and war. There are no linear conclusions in the end. Only some new doubts and unusual beauty.

Glaubler Rocha were one greatest brazilian director for all times, your movies had often political criticism against the system, from this point he was really banished by military regime which censured all his movies, so he decided went to France, this picture show it clearly when he displayed in some characters your political vision, starting with a dare idea to use one the most important catholic saint in Brazil "Saint George" Glauber used a metaphor were the Saint symbolize a poor people and the Dragon means a rule of the colonels that took place in nort-easten for many centuries, the battle between the good and the evil, restored from several sources this picture comes alive to us in good shape best as possible, with a lot of bonus which gave us another point of view of this remarkable director who died so young, but as a visionary filmaker deserves to be discovered by brazilians fans!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 8.5

Went into this one not really knowing what to expect. I'm no student of Brazilian history, and am sure this meant many allusions and much else that was interesting about the film passed me by. There were stretches where I felt my eyelids drooping (this was after a couple of beers, admittedly). However, some of the imagery is breathtaking, and the final ten minutes are just astonishing. I would watch it again for the end alone. Music too is great, particularly the final snatch of song/narration. Audience (half Brazilian, half staid English types like myself) was fairly bopping in the aisles...

Antonio das Mortes is a great example to understand Brazilian 'Cinema Novo', but also, to understand the complexity of social relations in the country, specifically in the northeastern region -- Brazil's poorest desertic region. Three groups of people are presented to the viewer. The 'Coronel' is the one who owns the land and controls the local authorities. The medium classes are represented by the 'Doctor', the 'Teacher' and the Catholic church -- all of them responsible for mantaining the structures of power that allow unequality to perpetuate. Lastly, the miserable people, who are led by the 'Cangaceiro' and the 'Santa' and are represented mostly by women of color, who lean on faith and popular culture to unite against poverty and starvation. The language, as in most of 'Cinema Novo' films, is overly artistic, caricatured and very little realistic at times. Theatrical acting and visual poetry are resources to tell the narrative of the film, and they do well, but sometimes the scenes are very disconnected from human logicality -- at times, the characters are simply unreasonable. Nonetheless, that is exactly how it is supposed to be. This movie is art by art, with a social narrative that fits perfectly in the times where unequality grew the most in Brazilian history. At the end of the day, the killers and the martyrs were all the same -- people.

It almost feels like a sequel to "Deus e o Diabo" (which I didn't like that much either) because of the slow camera and the vibrant music from the Northeast, considered a masterpiece by Mestre Glauber, for its musicality, representations through allegories that mix the ritual and folklore of the Northeast with all the colors, accents and beautiful photography, and for that alone it becomes remarkable.

For this work, Glauber Rocha received the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and he deserved it.

In a small town called Jardim das Piranhas, a bandit appears who introduces himself as the reincarnation of Lampião. His name is Coirana. Years after killing Corisco, Antônio das Mortes (a character from Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol) goes to the town to see the bandit. It is the meeting of myths, the beginning of the duel between the dragon of evil and the holy warrior. Other characters will populate the world of Antônio das Mortes. Among them, a disillusioned and hopeless professor; a colonel with delusions of grandeur, a police chief with political ambitions; and a beautiful woman, Laura, living in tragic solitude.