(Brazil, 106 min.)
Dir. Heitor Dhalia, Writ. Heitor Dhalia, Vera Egito
Starring: Júlio Andrade, Juliano Cazarré, Sophie Charlotte,
Wagner Moura, Jesuita Barbosa
National cinema is a tricky thing. The process of zooming in
on the practices, themes, and aesthetics percolating within one set of borders
offers a convenient method for highlighting currents in world cinema. Just look
at the fixation cinephiles have for long takes in films from Romania. One
recurring aesthetic choice—conscious or unconscious—might attract a repeat
audience that rides the Romanian New Wave on the festival circuit each year. If
Romania is one European country that has clearly benefited from discourse on
national cinema, then Brazil might assume the role of the Latin American nation
that has recently enjoyed the same spotlight.
It’s fitting, then, that this year’s Latin American Film Festival invites Ottawans to land in Brazil to begin their tour of the Latin American cinemascape. LAFF opens tonight with Bald Mountain (Serra Pelada) and the film is sure to let audiences experience the same electrifying jolt they felt during the renaissance of Brazilian cinema around the turn of the millennium. Bald Mountain is a bold and exciting drama with a sweeping historical backdrop. The visuals of the landscape are just as thrilling as the visual work on display in the film, which makes Bald Mountain a sumptuous opening number in spite of the film’s potent grittiness.
This film by Heitor Dhalia (Gone) has an awesome grandeur as it brings to the screen a
historical drama about the gold rush at Serra Pelada (Bald Mountain) in the
early 1980s. Friends Joaquim (Júlio Andrade) and Juliano (Juliano Cazarré)
decide to leave their lives in São Paulo with dreams of striking it rich with a
gold claim, but Bald Mountain instead
stakes a brutal portrait of greed and corruption as the riches of the mountain
tear the men apart.
Bald Mountain
begins with Juliano seated in an interrogation room. The camera holds on his
face as the investigator repeats the question, “Have you ever killed a man?” Cazarré is stoic and he gives audience the
initial impression that Juliano is a reserved and contemplative man; however,
as the film flashes back and tells the full story between the frames of the
interrogation, Bald Mountain explodes
Juliano as a monstrously corrupt man. Joaquim, on the other hand, retains a
naïve character as the friends rise in status on the mountain. Joaquim is
equally tainted by the time at the gold mine, as his focus on insatiable wealth
draws him away from the philosophy of working to provide for his family back
home in São Paulo and moves him further from the values that define him at
start of the expedition. Friends become rivals as ambition turns into fool’s gold,
and the pit at Bald Mountain becomes an all-consuming abyss.
The friends’ intimate story assumes an epic scope as Dhalia
frames their fall amidst the expansive backdrop of the Serra Pelada rush. Bald Mountain offers some visually
stunning feats as Dhalia takes the story into sprawling locations used to
recreate the mine. The director stages Bald
Mountain within a titanic production design that renders the thousands of
hopeful miners into insignificant ants. The
cavernous mine gives the film due credit to the allusion it makes to the
pyramids of Egypt that appears in Joaquim’s voiceover as he narrates the tale.
The magnitude of the drama and the weight of the tragedy evoke comparison to
large-scale studio film of 1950s and 1960s, as the inverted pyramids of Serra
Pelada have the enormity of a Biblical epic.
As Dhalia sets the downfall of Joaquim and Juliano within
the greater corruption capitalism breeds in the mines, Bald Mountain whisks the viewers into the smaller, more intimate
peripheries into which the exploitative by-products of the gold rush spill and
multiply. It’s in this corner of the mining town that Juliano gets his greatest
thirst for power as he pursues a local prostitute named Teraza (played with
memorable fieriness by Sophie Charlotte) who is betrothed to the reigning
slumlord and kingpin prospector. Echoes of the western arise as Juliano turns
to violence and becomes his own lawmaker, as he attacks the mining community
with a spree of graphic violence worthy of Deadwood.
Alternatively, Joaquim becomes an equally flawed character as he enlists the
help of a rival gangster, played by Wagner Moura of Elite Squad fame, to get revenge via street justice. Bald Mountain crumbles the prospectors’
dreams and their illusions of prosperity as Dhalia moves in and out of the
expansive space of the setting and creates a world that consumes and
dehumanizes the men of the mines.
Bald Mountain
juxtaposes the awe-inspiring landscape scenes with passages set in the tacky fluorescent
light of the slummy underworld. The bars and brothels outlying the mountain
have a sharp and gaudy contrast to the arresting imagery of the mountain with
their flashy tones of purple and pink that bathe the underworld, which overwhelms
Juliano, in an intoxicating feverishness. Most striking in the impressive
visuals of Bald Mountain, however, is
Dhalia’s use of the natural elements of the mountain as agents for both freedom
and corruption.
Mud enjoys a particularly symbolic role, as an early
skirmish in the fields cloaks Joaquim and Juliano in a muddy bloodbath in which
the fatal results of the fight seep into the natural surroundings of the
mountain and foreshadow the tragedy to come. Similarly, one dream sequence
featuring Joaquim shrouds the more optimistic of the two prospectors in the
mystical power of the landscape. This surreal sequence—a standout moment in the
film—implores the character to grasp his roots and return to his natural life
before the mania of the mountain condemns him for good. The use of light and
contrast to draw out the natural elements makes Bald Mountain a visually rich experience.
Dizzying handheld cinematography gives the film a bracing
energy and gradually generates a sense of chaos as things begin to spiral out
of control. The rapid and kinetic editing by Márcio Hashimoto Soares gives Bald Mountain an almost break-neck
pulse. The visual intensity of the film, plus its generic mixings and tragic
tale, make Bald Mountain an obvious
must-see for any film buffs that were fortunate to catch Brazilian Western on the festival circuit last year and are eager
to see the continuities in Brazilian cinema take the next step.
Last year’s Latin American Film Festival also opened with a
Brazilian film, The Clown (ironically so given the festival acronym of LAFF), which still
seems like an oddity among the offerings from the Latin American nation that
have made their way to local screens. Bald
Mountain easily fits into the mould that’s been shaped for Brazilian cinema
in international corners ever since the roaring success of 2002’s City of God, for better or for worse,
gave the country one of its biggest hits. Not every Brazilian film needs to be City of God, just like how Romanian
films don’t need to be 4 Months, 3 Weeks,
and 2 Days to fit the bill for “Romanian cinema,” but any expectations for City of God-like “Brazilianness” brought to Bald Mountain might actually do the film a favour.
Bald Mountain, for
one thing, shares a style and aesthetic reminiscent of Meirelles’ kinetic crime
film, but the similarities essentially end there. (Throw in some gangland
violence and slums for good measure.) Side by side, though, Bald Mountain offers an impressive
snapshot of how far Brazilian cinema has come in the decade since City of God in expanding Brazilian
stories to a larger canvas. (The opening Warner Bros. credit in Bald Mountain gives a taste of the range
to expect.) The sheer scope and scale of Bald
Mountain is truly stunning. It’s a sweeping, exhilarating epic.
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Bald Mountain screens in Ottawa at the Latin American Film Festival
tonight, March 27, at 7:00 pm at Library and Archives Canada. Please visit www.cfi-icf.ca for full details.
