Anchieta, José do Brasil (1977)

Synopsis: José de Anchieta was a jesuit priest that lived in the 16th century and spent the last four decades of his life in Brazil doing catechesis of the natives and serving as a kind of diplomat between native tribes.
Appraisal: Rather primitively staged -- a feature which appears to be intentional -- and excessively slow-paced at times, this filmed biography offers only a superficial glimpse at Brazil's history and at this particular man's life. Some of the dialogue is in a Brazilian Native language, without subtitles -- which makes it hard to figure out what goes on. Judging from this film, and also from some things I read on the Web, Anchieta favored gentle persuasion towards the natives and brute force (which included an execution) against Protestants. The permanently enraptured state that characterizes the leading actor's performance is probably misguided and would not convey the priest's real nuances of personality; in all fairness I have to say that he is not given much to work with scriptwise. Having myself been raised as a Catholic without ever really having understood much of the religion, I regard with amazement the devotion to Mary; in this film, Anchieta's devotion is so intense that I hypothesized that it was the sublimation of a Mother fixation or nostalgia of some kind; but either this has no factual substance or it was a phenomenon that affected not only him, as Anchieta's father was also a notorious devout of Mary. One detail that intrigued me concerns the fact that at the beginning of the movie Anchieta tells us in voiceover that his mother was of an 'indigenous' ethnicity (he was born in the island of Tenerife, off the coast of Africa) and that this was a common feature he shared with Native Brazilians. In fact it is now known that his mother was actually of Jewish origin, a fact that he would probably have hidden for fear of the Inquisition. Anyway, I don't know if the voiceover is based on Anchieta's actual writings, though I think it most probably is. In conclusion, I have found this film to be barely watchable; maybe with subtitles where needed my rating would be a little higher.
Rating: 31