Synopsis: This is the real life story of Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, the Viscount of Mauá, a 19th century Brazilian businessman. From a poor rural origin, he moved to Rio de Janeiro where he, beginning as a cashier, moved up to become a ship-maker, a railroad-maker and a banker. He would face the opposition of farmers and of the emperor himself.
Appraisal: On the good side, one can say that this is an instructive, easy to watch, film; also, the period reconstruction is good. On the not-so-good side, it is hard to find a dialogue or a sequence that is not utterly cliché. The characters are manicheistically delineated, with a typical villain in the person of the Viscount of Feitosa, the scheming farmer leader. The main character is portrayed in a favorable light, both in his entrepreneurial actions and in his support to the abolitionist cause; in particular, he is shown to have a lifelong friendship with one particular black employee of him. But, based on what the film itself shows, it is hard to sympathize fully with the character; his ruin, it appears, was at least as much a consequence of his own recklessnes as of his enemies' actions. On the other hand, the film is probably correct in identifying the opposition between Mauá and the farmers as one between economic development and the reactionary protection of oligarchic interests. Certain pieces of dialogue are very implausible, e.g. when his English partner discusses the labor conditions in England as if he had nothing to do with them. There is one particular line that was completely enigmatic: when Mauá confesses, at his black friend's deathbed, that he regrets having chosen a faceless boss. A final note: no credit has been given to Jorge Caldeira's 1995 biography "Mauá: Empresário do Império"; thus I don't know whether it was used as a source for this film.
Rating: 51
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