Abril despedacado. From the director of the highly-regarded Central Station comes a tale of honour and revenge in the sun-baked badlands of Brazil in 1910. A family blood feud gives meaning to a life of relentless toil until two travelling performers offer a chance of escape.
Four years after the Oscar nominated Central Station, the director Walter
Salles here returns with an impressive family feud saga set in 1910 Brazil.
The Bre... more >
Four years after the Oscar nominated Central Station, the director Walter
Salles here returns with an impressive family feud saga set in 1910 Brazil.
The Breves and the Ferreiras have been fighting for so long over the same
sugar beet plantation that they have their own rules: only one life can be
taken at any one time, and the participants have to wait for the blood on
the last victim's shirt to turn yellow in the sun before making their next
move. With the eldest Breves sibling's shirt flapping on the line, the
family rifle is passed to the unwilling hands of Tonino (Rodrigo Santoro).
Based on an Albanian novel, Behind The Sun is a project which appears to
have been conceived of purely in terms of extraordinary sights and recurrent
visual motifs (resurrections, the paths we take, and - above all else -
circularity: swings and yokes and bright blue eyes) which transcend all
language barriers. What results is a film with an absolute confidence in the
power of the image alone to convey something of meaning and significance.
Salles strikes a deeply humanist, not to mention natural, balance between
scenes of night and day, work and play, and between the two families at the
film's heart, something filmmakers in Ireland and the Middle East have not
always managed to achieve. This is a fable of great power and relevance,
illuminating a particular absurdity in the modern world: that kids growing
up at the start of this century should find themselves born into a similar
situation to that experienced by children living one hundred years before
them. Round and round the peacemakers and negotiators go, looking for a
happy ending they're almost certain never to find.
Four years after this Oscar nominated Central Station, the director Walter Salles here returns with an impressive family feud saga set in 1910 Brazil. The Breves and t... more >
Four years after this Oscar nominated Central Station, the director Walter Salles here returns with an impressive family feud saga set in 1910 Brazil. The Breves and the Ferreiras have been fighting for so long over the same sugar beet plantation that they have their own rules: only one life can be taken at any one time, and the participants have to wait for the blood on the last victim's shirt to turn yellow in the sun before making their next move. With the eldest Breves sibling's shirt flapping on the line, the family rifle is passed to the unwilling hands of Tonino (Rodrigo Santoro).
For all the acclaim it received world-wide, I felt there was something unconvincing about Central Station, a problem which sometimes arises when well-to-do film folk turn their attention to characters less well off than them. Though Salles' subjects this time around are equally poverty-stricken (one key line of dialogue suggests their sugar beet is going, much like the family, to become obsolete in the age of the steam engine), his camera now seems more grounded than ever, as if rooted in the sand and soil of its broiled location.
It helps that Behind The Sun is a film about storytelling, both in its verbal form - youngest Pacu Breves (Ravi Ramos Lacerda), who receives a picture book from a travelling circus performer, is our narrator - and, especially, in its visual emphasis. This is a project which, though based on an Albanian novel, appears to have been conceived of purely in terms of extraordinary sights and recurrent motifs (resurrections, the paths we take, swings and yokes and bright blue eyes) which transcend all language barriers. What results is a film with an absolute confidence in the power of the image alone to convey something of meaning and significance.
The second act, which initially seems a lyrical interlude between the real business of feud killings as Tonino runs off to the circus and finds a reason to live, has the necessarily tough task of showing us an idyllic world outside the constraining circle of the sugar beet yoke; that it accomplishes this task - and more - is at least partially down to a heroine (Flavia Marco Antonio) who is captivating without having been groomed and airbrushed out of all existence (she also has a way with fire - beat that, Julia Roberts!)
Along the way, Salles strikes a deeply humanist, not to mention natural, balance between scenes of night and day, work and play, the wet and the dry, and between the two families at the film's heart, something filmmakers in Ireland and the Middle East have not always managed to achieve. Of course this is a fable of great relevance today, illuminating a particular absurdity in the modern world: that young children growing up at the start of this century should find themselves born into a similar situation to that experienced by children one hundred years before them. And round and round the peacemakers and negotiators go, looking for a happy ending they're almost certain never to find.
