guisreis

Well done telefilm about cultural contrasts, the genocide against native people and the knowledge that was lost, and the contrast between cold science and warming connection between people. It is a moving film, although without huge emotional peaks, pehaps except for the great ending. There is beautiful footage and Graham Greene has a skilled performance.

Five months after watching it, I finally watched Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala, and I was impressed by how much this good TV movie is similar to the ending of the great Soviet film directed by the Japanese filmmaker. Anyway, they are actually two similar but independent stories. 1992 film The Last of his Tribe is based in the 1961 book Ishi in Two Worlds, and Kurosawa's movie was released in 1975 and was based in a book from 1923.

This is more a film on a famous manga than an usual boxing movie, as moves and fights are very unrealistic. Anyway, outcome is interesting. I loved the brownish palette, seeming vintage and bringing spectator to ate 1960s when the story is held and the manga was released. In the spirit of manga, the core characters, however, appear in brighter colours, being highlighted from the homogeneous vintage background. Settings, either the slums or the boxing gyms and arenas, are beautiful. It is curious to think about Rocky, released seven years after the beginning of the manga, but also with a similar approach for the leading character: a fast rise from nothing to stardom for an unconventional boxer who does not protect himself in the fights (no guard and no dodge, except for well shot Rikishi vs Joe bantamweight match), being repeatedly punched until the moment to reverse and win. In this movie, I liked a lot trainer Danpei Tange, and the beautiful ending with both rivals.

The film depicts violent Brazilian Northeast a little after the proclamation of the Republic, and may be considered as a Nordestern (Western movie with Brazilian Northwestern hinterland as setting). Three groups, all of them viciously violent and merciless, fight each other: the "volante" police (favouring equaly cruel landowners and politicians), the "cangaceiro" bandits, and the horde of religious fanatics controled by a messianic preacher "beato". The main characters are nice. José Mojica Marins has a great presence as Penances Joe, a character that is so different and similar at once to his iconic Coffin Joe. Penances Joe was obviously created having Antônio Conselheiro as inspiration. Indeed, it is interesting that the story merges the two most paradigmatic social phenomena of Brazilian Northeast between late XIXth century and mid-XXth century: War of Canudos (and the popular preachers known as "beatos") and the banditism known as "cangaço" (which actually existed before the Republic, but had it pinnacle when Lampião was the main leader in the 1920s and 1930s). Maurício do Valle, famous for portraying Antônio das Mortes in two films by Glauber Rocha, embodies once more a huge cangaceiro, here in a romance with the daughter of the powerful local landowner, characters played by Anik Malvil and great Jofre Soares. Sérgio Hingst also has a remarkable performance in the role of Peter Bullet, the deffinitely unpraiseworthy commander of the "volante" police. The film is nice, but could have been better if it were more careful with the edition, which turned it confusing sometimes and also with a disorganized sequence of events. Cinematography, however, had some very good moments, although not all the time.