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Dir. Glauber Rocha
Brazil-France-West Germany
Aka. O Dragão da Maldade contra o Santo Guerreiro
The disparity between a nation’s
cinema and the amounts of films that are available outside the country is
significant with the Brazilian director Glauber
Rocha, whose filmography on purchasable disc is only three films available
from the company Mr. Bongo; this is
problematic in that, despite my little knowledge of Rocha, what knowledge of him I know of is that of a very important
director in Brazilian cinema and Latin American cinema in general. Founder of
the Cinema Novo movement in the continent, Rocha
also wrote a very important manifesto on the Aesthetics of Hunger, calling on film directors in third world
countries to draw from their plight – poverty, government corruption etc. – and
channel it into left wing political cinema that could spark revolutions. In the
vast numbers of Latin American cinema of the 1960s and 1970s that is waiting
for me to see then, within a period of political strife during these decades
for countries like Chile and Brazil, Rocha
looks to be one of the most important directors of the continent, making the
lack of access to his films even more disparaging. Antonio Das Mortes can be said to be a sequel to Black God White Devil (1964), in which
the titular Das Mortes was introduced as a secondary character, a bounty hunter
who targets Cangaceiros, ‘mythical’ bandits who fought for the people. Played by
the same actor Mauricio do Valle, the
film gains a lot from being a continuation but can be viewed by itself, and it takes
the character on a very different path to before.
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| From http://s3.amazonaws.com/auteurs_production/images/film/antonio-das-mortes/w448/antonio-das-mortes.jpg?1309012930 |
Set decades after Das Mortes has
killed the last Cangaceiro, he is an older, less confident man, filled with
regret and yet also left without a purpose. When he is called upon to deal with
a leader claiming to be a Cangaceiro, it gives Das Mortes new purpose, but it
leads to him taking a drastic turn in his life from what he has done before. The
film sounds like a Brazilian western in plot, which it pretty much is, but it
is something far more drastic in tone from genre. Not only is the film set in a
more modern day environment, the older myths being crushed under modernisation
and completely losing the battle long before the film’s narrative, but the film
is definitely a political manifesto onscreen. It is very unconventional in
tone, willing for three quarters of its length to have prolonged scenes of
characters talking to each other and straight to the camera directly,
interlaced with overlapping dialogue over visuals and folk music, the Western
driven plot dissected for the purposes of Rocha’s
ideas as Das Mortes’ alliances drastically change. It is very much its own film
and completely unique to itself, its dialogue and literary subtext combining
the fantastical with politics and reminding me of William Blake’s more political and visionary writings. The growing intensity
of the film, intercut with scenes of violence, eventually grows into a finale
that is a barrage of merciless death, the only way tyranny can be overruled,
genre and political revolution as a cacophony of gun fire and blood that is brief
and startling, with a humorous and lyrical guitar song played over the screams
that makes it an event already immortalised during its length. The use of music
is exceptionally important for Antonio
Das Mortes, the sense of ordinary people within the narrative being able to
speak through songs, emphasised by the continuous singing that commands the
soundtrack at one point and drowns out the voice and gunfire of the capitalist
landowner and his henchmen. The music breaths life through the film while giving
it an even more mythical tone alongside its symbolism.
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| From http://www.theoneonefour.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Antonio-das-Mortes_still1.jpg |
The final film needs to be
adapted to, but by its end it is startling in its effect, the violence and rage
of the content emphased by its messy yet very considered structure, its deep
1960s colours almost making it look like the paintings that bookend the entire
film. The use of mythology with political fury is clearly biased, with no
regard for balance, but made in a period that could only get worse when a
dictatorship took over Brazil, forcing Rocha
to leave the country in exile, it is a creation of strife and the desire to
change the world when it was drastically needed. As the man who wrote a
manifesto of channelling one’s anger into one’s cinema, Rocha made a furious film that is effecting even if it loses you at
first with its unconventional tone. Pretty much like most world cinema once you
start to dig deeper into it, it will break down your views on what ‘cinema’ should
feel and be like, and the lack of Rocha’s
films in terms of availability is even worse when I consider that Antonio Das Mortes, with its desolate
ending, encourages one to continue through the director’s filmography, a vast
one even if he tragically passed in his forties that is out of hand’s reach.
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| From http://cf2.imgobject.com/t/p/original/voOUcsIgQQYPlLvIDPKeSJ0CT3h.jpg |
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