O Capitão Bandeira Contra o Dr. Moura Brasil (1971)

Synopsis:
*This synopsis contains spoilers*
Cláudio Bandeira is a businessman who is bored with his life, that he sees as futile and without significance. He is a success both in business and in love; women fall at his feet. He becomes fascinated with a woman he sees in a bar; when he finally gets a chance to talk to her, she tells him she is the messenger of a mysterious Dr. Moura Brasil, with whom Bandeira apparently made a pact years ago, and to whom he must now pay a debt of slavery. The following day, Bandeira has a chance encounter with a friend, the worriless, jobless, beer-loving, womanizing Gestaile. They talk and then Gestaile accompanies Bandeira to his company office, where the latter announces he is quitting the partnership in his company, after which a quarrel among the remaining partners ensue. Subsequently, Bandeira commits himself to a psychiatric clinic, to recover from his depression and deliriums. After he checks out, he is kidnapped and taken to the mysterious lady's mansion, where she points a gun at him; her chauffer/lover then appears with a gun of his own, and the lady and the chauffeur end up shooting each other dead. Bandeira then meets Gestaile and they both catch a plane to see Bandeira's wife. In the plane, he has a short nightmare/hallucination where a masked figure -- Dr. Moura Brasil -- is alone with him on the plane and has him tied up to the plane's chair. When they arrive in the house where Bandeira's wife is, they find out that she is leaving him for one of his partners. Bandeira makes love with his wife for one last time and then leaves; meanwhile Gestaile is lying on a chaise on the lawn outside the house, waiting for his friend, with many empty beer bottles scattered around him. Bandeira decides to take a trip to the seaside, and on the plane he meets -- apparently in a hallucination/nightmare -- the fearsome Dr. Moura Brasil again and they have a fight; Bandeira overpowers his adversary and flies the plane to its destination. By the seaside he meets a filming crew making a movie. There he becomes entranced by one beautiful young actress in that film, but his trance is interrupted by another lady friend from earlier days, who is very happy to see him. He doesn't reciprocate though. We then get to see the actors of the film within the film shooting some scenes. When the shooting is over, the film crew leaves. Bandeira is left alone on the beach. We then see the masked Dr. Moura Brasil standing in front of a mirror. He unmasks himself, revealing that he and Bandeira are one and the same. Then, in what probably is still a hallucination, Gestaile is talking to him, making a speech about how he should liberate himself from his neuroses and live his life to the fullest. A few seconds later, back to reality, he sees the young actress he had become enthralled by; they lengthily kiss.
*End of spoilers*

Appraisal: Amateurish, silly, self-indulgent, pseudo-avant-garde-ish, exploitative (as regards to gratuitous nudity and badly staged sex), unfunny except for the character of Gestaile (the drinking pal) who is congenial and played with verve -- which is not enough to make the film endurable though. A curiosity: the names of the main characters (and of the film) derive from a pot-smokers' saying: "Para não dar bandeira, use colírio Moura Brasil", which translates roughly as "To disguise your [red-eyed] state, use colirium Moura Brasil [this being of course the colirium's brand name]".
Rating: 6