Cangaceiro
(1953)
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Cangaceiro
(1953)
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Credited cast: | |||
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Alberto Ruschel | ... |
Teodoro
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Marisa Prado | ... | |
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Milton Ribeiro | ... |
Capitão Galdino Ferreira
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Vanja Orico | ... |
Maria Clódia
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Adoniran Barbosa | ... |
Mané Mole
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Ricardo Campos |
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Neusa Veras |
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Zé do Norte |
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Jesuíno G. dos Santos | ... |
(as Jesuíno)
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Maria Luiza Splendore | ... |
(as Maria Luiza)
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Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
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Antonio V. Almeida |
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Heitor Barnabé |
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Lima Barreto |
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Dan Camara |
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Horácio Camargo |
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Brazilian movie inspired by American westerns (but losing none of its cultural integrity) about Cangaceiro (bandit) Teodoro who falls in love with a small town school teacher who his gang has kidnapped. Written by Cristian Redferne <Harlock@prodigy.com>
Another great film that is characterised by a memorable music score. Not all films with great music are great films, but haunting or otherwise memorable scores are a feature of so many of the greatest films of all time - The Third Man, Jeux Interdits, High Noon, American Graffiti, most of the Kubrick opus, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and probably any documentary adopting Philip Glass' minimalism (The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War) being prominent examples. This is so even when the music is not original but simply selected and edited in from classical music, popular or folk songs, as appropriate and evocative. Bets are that you won't be able to get the title folk song of O Cangaceiro out of your head for some time after you've finished watching it - it seems to affect every viewer that way.
This is a film reminiscent of The Wages of Fear, in its portrayal of poverty and the brutality, especially towards women, traditionally endemic in South America. No wonder Claude Levi-Strauss entitled his seminal ethnographic work based on travels in South America "Tristes Tropiques".
I had been warned of the brutality of the horse-dragging scene in this film - yet I can only say that it pales into insignificance with the graphic closing horse-dragging scene of The Cowboys - when I guess John Wayne was, as his career closed, ever more drawn to reactionary law-and-order neanderthalism.
A melancholic film with great B/W cinematography and even better music, depicting that eternal South American atmosphere of brutality and tragic sadness. A rare film well worth watching.