Macunaíma [Blu-ray]

Director: Joaquim Pedro de Andrade Joaquim Pedro de Andrade

Overview

This satirical comedy focuses on Macunaima, a black native from the forests of Brazil. When he bathes in a magic stream, he is turned into a white man. He travels to town and becomes a female revolutionary's lover. However, when Macunaima returns to the jungle, he is abandoned by his followers.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/05/2019
UPC:	0738329236595
Original Release:	1969
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kino Lorber
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo, DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound]
Language:	English
Time:	1:44:00
Sales rank:	38,621

Special Features

Bonus Features - all directed by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade: ; The Conspirators (1972, 79 minutes); Brasilia, Contradictions of a New City (1967, 23 minutes); The Language of Persuasion (1970, 11 minutes)

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Grande Otelo	Macunaima Black
Paulo José	Macunaima White
Milton Gonçalves	Giant
Rodolfo Arena	Jigue
Jardel Filho	Actor
Dina Sfat	Mae

Technical Credits

Editorial Reviews

It's difficult for those not immersed in Brazilian culture to get a handle on the significance of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's surreal farce, Macunaíma. It's an undeniably silly and crude movie, but as with the novel it's based on, the film offers a far-reaching and surprisingly cogent analysis of Brazilian society at the time of its production. De Andrade offers a broadly amusing critique of racial stereotypes. Macunaíma (Grande Otelo), "a hero with no character," is a lazy whiner from the moment of his birth. His magical transformation into a white man (Paulo José) does nothing to change his nature, but has a tremendous effect on how others see him. The film's one true revolutionary character, the sexually aggressive Cí (Dina Sfat, José's wife at the time), pointedly blows herself up. An Italian industrialist, Pietro Pietra (Jardel Filho) steals the muiraquita, Macunaíma's cultural legacy, and seems to devour half the country. Literally. Cannibalism is a pervasive theme of the film, from the hero's bizarrely funny encounter with an ogre who offers the hungry Macunaíma a piece of flesh from his own leg, to the film's gory climax at Pietro Pietra's wedding. These metaphorical allusions give the seemingly lightweight film a surprising allegorical heft. For all its aesthetic shortcomings and its occasionally impenetrable (to the outsider) politics, it's startling to realize that the film was produced shortly after a military dictatorship had placed severe constraints on artistic freedom in Brazil, which could easily have crippled the nascent Cinema Novo movement. Macunaíma's low-minded vulgarity served the function of disguising the film's higher aims and circumventing the censorious mindset of the times.