Madame Satã

As a Dutchman it is hard to judge the historical content of the film. What I've seen was very interesting. Considering the fact it is made after a true story it makes it even more special. The film covers many aspects of life in Brazil in the thirties. Although it is often shown in broad lines it's convinces me. It made me think of the class struggle in my own country. In Dutch you say: als je voor een dubbeltje geboren bent wordt je nooit een kwartje (when you are born as a nickel you'll never become a quarter. In a way it is an optimistic movie. Despite of all the setbacks and jail sentences, the main character does not get broken. Madame Satá becomes a real success winning several prices in carnival parades and other events. I truly admire the actors, especially Lázaro Ramos who plays stunning. The camera-work is great. The special effects are modest and well done. The music in the film is beautiful. I really enjoyed this movie. This movie deserves a wide audience.

This is like watching a Jean Genet novel translated into Portuguese and relocated to Brazil, circa 1930. All the characters are present: thieves and whores, drag queens and murders, love and hate. Lázaro Ramos, as Madame Satã, gives a wonderful performance that gives real meaning to the word `fierce';a complicated man whose only possible response to a world that hates him is to rage against it. And what rage! And what love! The family he pieces together, as wounded and damaged as he is, provides the only constant in a life that poverty and exile have doomed to chaos. Karim Ainouz, the director, must be congratulated on this courageous film.

I found this movie mesmerizing, both due to the lead performance and the depiction of a time and place previously unfamiliar to me. A previous user comment said that Jaoa is heterosexual and that Lorita's baby is his. Just for clarification, he is not, and neither is the baby. I don't know how accurate this bio-pic really is in portraying the life of Jaoa Francisco vos Santos. But the character is a perplexing and complex mixture of violence and tenderness, talent and self-destruction. Clearly a victim of internalized homophobia and brutal class hierarchy, Jaoa knows he is destined for greatness, but can't keep his underlying rage from exploding all over everyone, friend and foe. It's dog eat dog in the slums of Rio, but Jaoa creates a family with a female prostitute named Lorita, her baby(on whom Jaoa dotes sweetly), and the greatly put-upon and abused servant, Tabu. Jaoa takes one step forward, then two steps back--straight in to prison, over and over. The real Jaoa Francisco vos Santos was a highly celebrated female impersonator and lived to the ripe old age of 76, despite an extremely punishing existence. I think the film reveals naked humanity, sometimes the viewer is horrified but can't stop peering into the wreckage.

Madame Sata is one of the most colorful, agitating, controversial, shifting, restless, erratic films you could ever watch on silver screen. The protagonist is also the antagonist with his often irrational and aggressive behaviour, possibly a trademark of Joao Francisco himself on which the film is based on, although this could be one of the film's flaws. The characters are as lively and colorful as he is and the acting is quite well, too.



An activist and a pioneer in many ways in the Brasil of 1930's, he could be seen as a gay activist, a transvestite activist, a swinger activist, a one-man-show pioneer, a strong, willful, self-confident and proud individual who defies almost all possible rules, regulations and conventions of his time, and not because he wants to be standing out.



Although the story line and Francisco's character are quite fanciful and interesting, the dialogues seem to be pretentious, the character build-up insufficient and the editing quite confusing, causing the overall feel to be incomplete and puzzling.

I feel proud about the Brazilian cinema of the last years. Although facing many difficulties, mainly financial ones, the Brazilian film-makers are proving that it is possible to make a truly high level cinema here.

"Madame Satã" is just another example of this new Brazilian cinematography. Excellent photography, which really brings to the screen the mood of 30's bars and nightclubs from Lapa (Rio de Janeiro traditional bohemian neighbourhood, known also for its violence). The camera is "drunk" and "high" in many moments, in others is able to show tenderness in an ultra violent and uncontrolable character (the scenes where João Francisco takes care of Laurita's baby). The cast is excellent, with a great merit of young Lázaro Ramos, performing a character that has everything to lead to exageration or to a ridiculous acting; even though, Lázaro manages to bring to life in a realistic way someone who is a homosexual with feminine behaviour in some times and in other times is a scary fighter, who could deal with 3 or 4 opponents bare handed.

The main achievement of the film, though, in my opinion, is that the director wanted to show the personality of João Francisco, not worrying too much in telling a story. The plot is almost absent, we are invited to make part of João Francisco's turbulent, violent and difficult life through Lapa's gethos and bars, dealing with prostitutes, police, thugs and dangerous people. We can understand why Francisco,later called "Madame Satã" lived that way (even though we may not agree with it) , having in one hand the fascination for a fairy tale world of fantasy, with songs in French and taking care of a baby and in the other hand dealt with streetfights, robbery and eventual imprisonments in jail. If it is difficult for someone to be poor, black and homosexual in nowaday's Brazil, imagine in the 30's!

Great movie, great acting, great photography, great editing, the only thing I can do is give it a 10!