Ruth de Souza Movies
- 2004
Directed by Joel Zito Araujo, Daughters of the Wind, during its production, featured the largest cast of black actors ever seen in a Brazilian film. The story follows the complex relationship between a set of sisters, mothers, and daughters; a family funeral serves as a starting point for a series of flashbacks from the 1960s and '70s. Though general sexism and gender stereotyping are among the causes for the tension between them, the social and political remnants of slavery present an even more insidious conflict to be dealt with. The film includes Milton Goncalves, Ruth de Souza, Lea Garcia, and Maria Ceica. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth de Souza, Milton Goncalves, (more)
- 2002
Brazilian brothers Renato and Geraldo Santos Pereira direct the period biopic Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory, and Torment. The film is a portrait of the 18th century artist Antonio Francisco Lisboa as played by Mauricio Goncalves. Also known as Aleijadinho, the sculptor, architect, and martyr was originally born the son of a slave. The artist's life is told in flashbacks through a professor's investigation conducted years after his death. Aleijadinho's daughter-in-law (Ruth de Souza) tells stories about his life and career, revealing his struggles with mental illness and disease which ultimately caused his physical disabilities. Even with the disadvantage to his extremities and the trauma involving his wife, Aleijadinho continued to work. Aleijadinho: Passion, Glory, and Torment was screened in the U.S. at the 2002 African Diaspora Film Festival in New York. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mauricio Goncalves, Maria Ceica, (more)
- 1998
Um Copo de Colera, which is adapted from a novel by Raduan Nassar, is an experimental film about an odd couple. She is an attractive journalist of twenty-five and he is a recluse in his late thirties who lives in a farm house outside Sao Paulo, where he has created a world of his own. When he comes home, she is waiting for him. They go to the bedroom. There is hardly a word spoken between the two. The next morning, he remembers that ants have chewed a hole in the hedge. He is very angry and the atmosphere changes. The harmony explodes into insults and recriminations. A few hours later, the same ritual is repeated -- desire, fulfillment, humiliation. Um Copo de Colera which was screened as part of the Panorama: art & essai section of the 49th International Berlin Film Festival, 1999, is a psychological study of the male warrior in the battle of the sexes, and an impressive self-examination and analysis of machismo. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alexandre Borges, Julia Lemmertz, (more)
- 1986
This drama is an adaptation of a 1935 novel by Jorge Amado. Baldo is a black man from the wrong side of the tracks whose lifetime occupations keep changing. He works at being a servant, thief, boxer, ne'er-do-well, circus performer, and finally a strike organizer. Throughout this daunting array of activities, he carries a torch for a fair-haired beauty from the opposite side of the tracks whose own life changes from pampered to impoverished, and from impoverished to drug-ridden. She loves Baldo, but their destinies never seem to cross at the right place or the right time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles Balano, Francoise Goussard, (more)
- 1962
1962 is known as the year of Cinema Novo -- the year that the Brazilian film movement broke. Roberto Farias was the author of an influential essay that laid the groundwork for the movement's profound economic model and later became the head of Brazil's national film distribution agency Embrafilme. As a director, Farias produced a number of compelling films in the Cinema Novo style -- loose, edgy editing coupled with stories that reveal the contradictions of Brazil's society. Train Robbery Confidential takes the stock plot of a train robbery a turns it to serve the ends of social commentary. Tiao Medonho is an easygoing gang leader with big ambitions but few plans. After stumbling upon a group of fellow petty criminals, they let Tiao in on their plot to rob a mail train carrying a month's worth of pay out to Brazil's rural areas. The robbery comes off without a hitch and the group splits up each to live the lux life. It doesn't last, however, (when does it ever?) and the police begin to zero in on Medonho. At the film's climax, his partners execute a kind of justice which serves as a revolutionary allegory and as a critique of a society that drives its poorer members to crime. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide
- 1960
A low-budget, low-standard drama about voodoo and death in Brazil, Macumba Love is directed by Douglas Fowley (Doc Holliday in the Wyatt Earp TV series). A writer travels to the land of the samba in order to investigate its voodoo practitioners and several suspicious-looking murders that could be laid at their doorstep. As his investigations start hitting too close to their target, his own continued existence looks more and more problematical. Songs and some wild dancing, as well as Playboy centerfold June Wilkinson add spice to the otherwise uninspired tale. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Walter Reed, Ziva Rodann, (more)
