O País dos Tenentes

The Brazilian's filmmakers often trying hit in the infamous military dictatorship stablished in 1964, then the director and screenwriter João Batista de Andrade masterminded this offering looking back the Brazilian background over some uprisings revolutionaries took place in our country thru a look of current General played by the veteran actor Paulo Autran, unfortunately a so complex narrative with countless flashbacks allied on dramatic present day undermines the picture deeply.

It has some uniqueness indeed as the main character witnessing the own past life in warfare in several key moments, however the director exposes it in slow pace, worst sprayed it in many outlying characters that somehow blurred the main subject, therefore the picture lost the punch in several off-topic sequences, it worthwhile a look by fabulous casting as Cassia Kiss, Buza Ferraz , Giulia Gam, Flavio Antonio and many others, also bring to Brazilian memory some lost facts for newest generation as the forgotten Lieutenant's movement in Rio de Janeiro.

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First watch: 2025 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.

The disappointment I had with this movie wasn't huge but it was still a disappointment since director/writer João Batista de Andrade had a great historical theme to use as a major background that wasn't seen in the movies (the Lieutenants' Movement of 1922) and mix it with the Diretas Já movement of 1984 where the similarities of both only happen because it were movements from the masses of population who wanted a change on each corrupt political leaderships of their particular era. Too bad that the film's speech is incoherent, lacking in a proper development and almost nothing is interesting.

At the twilight of his life and with death approaching, the old retired General Gui (Paulo Autran) has only two concerns of which alienates him from, everybody including his own family: to spend some good time with his grandson (Henrique Christensen) and to revisit his past as a young lieutenant during the early years of democracy in Brazil where he and comrades in arms fought against the bad politics of their time, creating their revolution back in the 1920's.

While the grown men of his family have to deal with an important business matter with the company one of them work, and the old man was an important figure to such business due to his connections and they need him desperatly, the old man rejects everything because he's too worried about his past, trying to figure out if he was a traitor to the revolutionary cause, as a friend of his (Buza Ferraz) told him one tme in life and then as a ghost from the past that haunts Gui in his visions.

Through countless confusing flashbacks we are taken back to an initial revolutionary act that took place in the south of Brazil, which was successful, and then later to the Lieutenant's Movement in Rio which was squashed by the forces allied by the government. In the 1984 segment where a new revolution is on the rise, and this time coming from the majority of people rather than the military since now they were in charge of government and of something Gui was an integral part, the old general faces a family crisis when his grandson disappears mysteriously and media and police authorities believe in a possible case of kidnapping by opposite forces. But does the man care all that much about the boy? Slightly, the ghosts are more important.

It's like he needs a validation or some form of redemption for past actions - way later it's revealed that he changed positions during another planned rebellion, this time supporting the Vargas regime and what was probably kept him in good terms with the military hence why he became a general.

Andrade's film was ambitious in its purpose but not in its presentation. Confusing, vague and cryptic in its criticism of the political periods, and it's a shame since he's a resourcel filmmaker/documentarist who covered in great details many facades of Brazil's history. It's a pity that he jumps from the revolutionary acts of the 1920's to the then establishment of the 1980's without showing the military coup of 1964 where most likely Gui was already a general, and to eliminate this period and only addressing that the man was a key figure in the world of economics and his contacts rather than a deeper involvement in the dirty deeds of the military was too-simple minded. A man like him couldn't been just involved in logistic and strategies; he might have been involved in killings and tortures or at least giving orders to such while getting rid of opositors.

Yet it's not a total loss. The presentation of the Lieutenant's Movement and the previous revolutionary act before that made the film worth seeing.

A territory that was never explored before, it was interesting in understanding what it was all about and how they tried to make it work in order to grant freedom and democracy to the country, even though they had many differences inside their own groups. Had the movie just this presentation with more battle scenes rather than a weird reminiscences exposition then we'd have a far superior movie than we had. Watching the old man ignoring everybody, barely walking out of his own letargy and everybody else doing with the boy's disappearance (which by the way, it's never quite explained and it's all played out in an unreasonable way since the rich man lives on a big mansion that somehow is so glued with a poor community that the unfortunate kids manage to play around in his backyard along with the lonely rich boy), it's all dull, empty and without any meaning that could connect past and present.

Frustrating because it doesn't know where to go and what kind of message has to say, "The Country of the Lieutenants" is also a disappointment on its casting department despite the great names as Autran, Ricardo Petráglia, Cassia Kiss, Giulia Gam and Antônio Petrin. It's not a case of bad performances but mostly because they're given so little to show that everything becomes quite ordinary. The only who had some special spotlight was Buza Ferraz as the idealist military, stealing the show in the brief moments he appears. Sadly, legendary Paulo Autran didn't get a chance to shine in a leading role where he became a background character who only mumbles a couple of lines here and there, without having a chance to deliver a spectacular moment or to have a memorable line. He only brings the necessary requirement of appearing as an important figure who had a great and long life experience, even though the character is only presented as someone out of touch with the current reality. A pity. 5/10.