Policarpo Quaresma, Herói do Brasil (1997)

Release title in Canada: The Patriot

Based on the novel Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma, by Lima Barreto, published in serial form in 1911, and as a book in 1915.

The titular character is a civil servant who gains a reputation as an eccentric for his extreme nationalism. He faces a series of vicissitudes as a consequence of that obsession.

Lacklustre comedy, based on a book I have not read, and from which, based on summaries available on the internet, it departs on several instances. The theme of the movie is the possibility of Progress in a backward environment; it shows how one individual's good intentions are often misguided, or doomed, or both. This theme is probably taken from the source novel, but it is not satisfyingly developed for the screen. The competent work of most of its actors gives the movie a modicum of watchability.

Rating: 30

Le sauvage (1975)

U.S. titles: Lovers Like Us; The Savage.
U.K. title: Call Me Savage.

A woman runs away from her husband on the very night of her wedding. She is helped by a man who lives in a deserted island. He gets stuck with the woman.

Vapid comedy whose basic situation -- a man who wants to get rid of a woman and eventually falls in love with her -- has been used in countless films, many of which better than this one. As a mindless entertainment it isn't completely ineffective: it is short and filled with action.

Rating: 33

L'avare (1980)

English titles: The Miser; Grandiose Delusions.

Based on the play by Molière, first performed in 1668, and in turn "loosely based on the Latin comedy Aulularia by Plautus, from which many incidents and scraps of dialogue are borrowed, as well as from contemporary Italian farces" (Wikipedia). On the sources of L'avare, see also this article by Moritz Levi.

Harpagon, a widower with a son and a daughter, wants to marry a young woman. The problem is that his son is also in love with her and she with him. His daughter in turn wants to marry Harpagon's butler. Harpagon has a chest full of coins buried in his back yard.

This is a faithful adaptation of the play, very well done. For those who enjoy this sort of antique it must be a treat. One of the big problems for me is that there is a blatant contradiction in the main character's psyche. He wants to marry out of love, which contradicts his whole characterization as a miser. Well, anyway, that's the way they wrote plays in those far gone days, without much psychologizing. The French Wikipedia page on this film is impressively extensive. One learns, for example, that one line from the play which was suppressed in the film was: « Comment diable ! quel Juif, quel Arabe est-ce là ? » (said by Cléante), and that it is often absent in modern theatrical performances as well. One reads also that one of the critiques made to the film is that the amorous side of the main character was not given any attention by the main actor. But that was not given any attention by the playwright either! My take is quite the opposite: as subtlety was never a forte of that actor, he is perfect for this kind of play and role. But justice be done: his original contribution to the adaptation, both sequences featuring an offerings collector for the Church, the last of which ends the film, are pure genius.

Rating: 50

Faites sauter la banque! (1964)

U.S. title: Let's Rob the Bank

A man loses all his money after a bad investment made on advice of a crooked banker. He decides to avenge himself and get his money back by robbing the bank. As he lives next door to it, he engages his whole family to dig a tunnel connecting his house (and commerce establishment) to the bank.

Interesting comedy. The humor and plot are of an elementary kind, but it's all reasonably well done, so it works.

Rating: 51

Black Spurs (1965)

After Santee becomes a bounty hunter, his girl abandons him. He makes a deal with a crooked businessman who wants the railroad to pass through his city instead of a neighboring one. It consists in bringing women and gambling, and thus lawlessness, to that neighboring city, which would make it unsuitable in the eyes of the government for being the site of the railroad passage. It so happens that Santee's former girlfriend now lives in that city and is married to the local sheriff.

B-Western. Though cheap and unsophisticated, it is, as most Westerns, easily watchable.

Rating: 32

Fort Utah (1956)

Western. A former gunfighter, an Indian agent, and a caravan leader join efforts against renegade soldiers who mutineered and took over a fort, killing all the other soldiers in it. Those renegades have also stirred up revolt amongst the Indians, who want the renegade leader dead.

B-Western, with a very compact narrative. Not exactly thrilling or original, yet not entirely uninteresting either; the plot is propelled forward by a stream of challenges, conflicts and dilemmas faced by the protagonists; there is a considerable amount of fistfighting and gunfighting, and even some romancing.

Rating: 35

Stranger at My Door (1956)

A bank robber on the run is forced, on account of his horse's injured leg, to take refuge at a preacher's farm. Said preacher, who is married to a younger wife and has a son from a previous marriage, becomes dead set on converting his outlaw guest.

B-Western which has garnered some late respect and deals with the theme of redemption, one that is always popular among critics and cinephiles. It has a fair amount of well-staged action sequences, and a plot which does what it can to explore all its potential dramaticity, in this case availing itself of an apparently untameable horse as a metaphor for the bandit. To be blunt, the script's dramatic solutions are of the facile kind, occasionally venturing into the absurd. Even though I am naturally averse to religious propaganda, I tried in earnest to approach this film with an open mind, but it didn't fare as well in my assessment as it did in some other people's. Slightly above average for its budget range is the most I can concede to it.

Rating: 38

La mort en ce jardin (1956)

(Poorly translated) U.S. title: Death in the Garden.

At a South American village, miners revolt after the government seizes their mining grounds. An old man is wrongly accused of being the leader of the revolt; he was planning to go back to France with his mute daughter and a local prostitute to whom he proposes marriage. A stranger in town sleeps with said prostitute and in the next morning is accused of a robbery. When government reinforcement troops arrive to town, the four of them, plus a missionary priest, board a riverboat and flee the village. They take refuge in the Amazon jungle, trying to find their way to the Brazilian border. With the shortage of food, and the difficulties in orientation, their survival is seriously jeopardized.

Pulpish adventure with a few memorable sequences which, if not conceived by the director, fit his notorious style nicely, such as: the teasing of a mute girl by stepping on her boot laces; a snake devoured by ants; a prostitute in a gala dress in the middle of the jungle; etc. Also, he seems to have a predilection for eye hurt. The premise is dated: freedom for miners is frowned upon nowadays by environmentalists. It is an eventful enough story as to avoid dullness, but there is little in it of real originality or consequence. The cinematography, on the other hand, is breathtaking, especially as seen on a (presumably) restored high definition copy.

Rating: 45

Os Três Cangaceiros (1961)

A village in Northeastern Brazil is repeatedly raided by a gang of bandits (of the kind known as cangaceiro) who rob the local establishments and kidnap young women. Two of the villagers are rivals for the love of a woman, and when she is kidnapped they, plus a third one, disguise themselves as bandits and infiltrate the gang.

After the success of O Cangaceiro, a fad of similar films happened in Brazil, and it was inevitable that comedies too were made. This one has a very simple-minded type of humor and a predictable plot who borrows on Seven Samurai (and its American version The Magnificent Seven), The Three Musketeers and The Lone Ranger. There is nothing really to recommend it, unless you have an interest in Brazilian cinema and Brazilian comics, or want some really mindless entertainment.

Rating: 31