Vazante

Very good portrait of the life of enslaved Africans (both their habits and their suffering) and the decaying slaver society in Brazil, shown in a perhaps too sluggish pace but with an amazing and careful sober low-contrast black & white cinematography (besides rich sounds which transport espectator to that farm in Minas Gerais). Many social issues are discussed as the actual background, such as impoverishment of small farmers, patriarchy, low-age marriage for girls, dark-skinned free workers who repressed black slaves, varied and naturalized violences against black enslaved people (including sexual one), African religion and languages, people considered as animals (what cinematography captures in many beautiful and strong scenes)... As director explained, slavery oppression is often portrayed in Hollywood as something made by psychopath individual minds, but that cruelty was much more systhemic, in the level of state, deep in the ground of society structure. Against most critiques, I agree with her and I believe she was able to sgow that. In the middle of the movie, film's focus narrows from a more general exploration to the passage from childhood to teenage of a white girl in that harsh environment. Probably it was not the most interesting among available stories she could have developed. Though, it was a valid one, anyway.