Il bandito della luce rossa

Like the vast majority of Nouvelle Vague films (yes, this film drank heavily from that source), what you see is a terrible and pretentious execution of a job with little talent. As a result, the duration seems to be three times longer than it really is.

This movie was shot in 1968, just as Brazil was getting into the worst years of the Military Dictatorship that started in 1964. The director was only 22, but not your regular angry young man protesting against social and political problems. In the face of a bleak reality, he decided to laugh at absolutely everything. This is a piece of nihilistic cinema that does not take anything seriously, not even itself. If this movie was a rock band of its era, it would be one that foreshadowed the twisted humor and chilling violence of punk rock. It has certainly inspired many crazy Brazilians to go and do even more shocking stuff in front of a camera.

In the 60's, The Red Light Bandit (Paulo Villaça) is a famous Brazilian criminal, who uses a red flashlight while breaking into residences in São Paulo, and usually rapes his female victims. The police chases him as a legend, but does not know his true identity.

In the end of the 60's in Brazil, young directors broke with the Brazilian movement "Cinema Novo" (meaning "New Cinema"), and begin a new movement, called "Cinema Marginal" (meaning "Underground Cinema"). "O Bandido da Luz Vermelha" is a milestone of this new current of filmmakers. Rogério Sganzerla presents this movie as if it were a popular police radio chronic of São Paulo and in a very chaotic way, following the worldwide movement of counterculture and the Brazilian Tropicalismo, in the toughest period of the military dictatorship in my country. This movie is the debut of Sonia Braga in the cinema, and her participation is limited to one scene, as a victim of the criminal. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Bandido da Luz Vermelha" ("The Red Light Bandit")

Note: On 09 December 2010, I saw this film again on DVD.

But the movie is way too pretentious. There isn't enough plot or characters to bind it all together. The social commentary is too "on the nose". Everything is an allegory or a steretype - the criminal, the prostitute, the politician. The director had too many ideas but, in the end, the movie is not very interesting. It's too self-aware as a movie intended to be cerebral. As a Brazilian, I wanted this movie to be better, but it disappointed me. There were some good things: the music, the innovativd use of narrators. I also liked the shots of mid-century São Paulo. It's clearly a child of the Nouvelle Vague.

The theme is wonderful, his character would yield a wealth of material for a criminal biography, the form of exposure, narration interspersed with newspaper and radio clippings, and a comical, almost inappropriate dose (considering the macabre tone of violence he used, especially against women women), but the film didn't please me as much as I imagined, let's go for the 2010 sequel...