MACUNAÍMA, THE FILM

CINEMA IN COLOR, LIFE IN BLACK and WHITE

(this is a computer translation. I will fix it up!!)

Benedita of Silva, the first black senator from Brazil, affirmed in a recent interview São Paulo's Leaf that already felt the desire to be white. Mário of Andrade, inspired by this common dream among the poor population of African origin, created Macunaíma, a different hero. In the filmed work of Joaquim Pedro of Andrade (1971), Macunaíma focaliza the difficulties of the life of the people, that it is unable to take place fully in the world, but even so he/she dreams about a better life, that when accomplished, it is not really different from the previous situation.

Black Symbol

Macunaíma is, before everything, a symbol. According to critical Randal Johnson, until the name of the tribe indigina the one that belongs Macunaíma, called Tapanhumas, it means black. For the critics, it is the anti-hero or the hero without character. Macunaíma represents all the homems and suffered of Brazil women. It is not a hero for the he/she does or that stops doing. Its existence - or better, survival - it is that turns it a hero. As black, Macunaíma was despised and mistreated by everybody, besides its family and until the own mother. In a scene of partition of the hunt, when everybody received good pieces, Macunaína just receives the guts of the animal. When questioning this distribution, everybody agrees that was that that Macunaíma really deserved. As in the senator's dreams, Macunaíma accomplishes the impossible dream and, in a surprising way, he/she sees white, in a mixture of carochinha histories and legends of the north of Brazil. In the film this transformation is made in a simpleton way, because the character doesn't have the splendor of a nobleman and so little its magnitude. It is just a wearing a costume beautiful white of prince with clothes of paper crepon.

Character Stereotypes

One of the character's characteristics is its constant laziness and its way of trying to take advantage of situations in own benefit--a clear abordagem to the Brazilian way and of the black's image and, still, of the dream of all Brazilian: a rest life and lazer. The use of a series of popular dictations would be the uncultured man's philosophy and an explanation to the daily events. The sexualidae ferrenha and endless energy for the loving acts would seriate the black man's myth that master's fame is had in this subject. The machismo is also shown when he tries to seduce a man woman travestido and in the hour H escapes with fear from facing the bisexual side. With the women it gets a full sexual satisfaction and he/she brags of being the best lover.

Allegory about life and death

Macunaíma is in general an allegory on the Brazilian people and of the Brazilian black in particular. It is the a man's of the people tragetória that is born in it ruins them and it is going of stumble in stumble for the life, facing obstacles and living situations that are alternated between the comedian and the tragic. The film sequence exhibition in sequence in the life of Macunaíma, the history of the poverty of the Brazilian people. Macunaíma is born like this top, dropping in the earth. The hero is ugly and deformed, as it is the black's life. Macunaíma delays to speak because the poor doesn't have voice. His fights against the Giant are the black's fights to get its support and to recover its cultural inheritance, represented by the talisman.

Color Relationships

The use of the color for symbolic ends is constant. Black and white (races), green and yellow (nationalism), roxo and red (ideology)--they are all representative images of associated messages the society in Brazil. In racial terms, the inter-relationship of the black and white is a theme of the work. Macunaima is born black and he/she sees white, but he/she is a black boy's father. White vser is not enough an alone time, Macunaima repeats the experience. In spite of these changes the character of Macunaíma doesn't move, it continues lazy and suitable, living on alms or of the work of others.

Cannibilism and other themes

Other thematic one fully explored in the work of Mário of Andrade it is the cannibalism. The simbologia antropofágica is deep and variable. The poor Brazilian wants to devour the rich, as well as it is devoured by the society. This way, as in Joaquim Pedro's " words Brazil devours its cidadãõs, the citizens devour Brazil, and Brazil, consequently, it devours himself ". As well as the cycle of color change, to the cycle of cannibalism--sexual or not--it is an accusation of the vicious circle of the man's exploration for the man, that you/they are all interlinked ones and interdependentes.

Optimism and Hope

In spite of this it looks pessimism, there is also a current of optimism in Macunaíma. Joaquim Pedro is a film director that creates again a hard reality in which there is place for dreams and ideals. While that dream is not reached, its films show human beings in escape, being devoured and massacred, seeking an alternative road insofar as possible for its lives.

The first color change in Macunaíma happens when he smokes a pipe and in that magic mixture of smell and smoke, it assumes the posture of a prince and exhaling a great sexuality becomes the maid's of the family insatiable lover, but with its brother's arrival representing being castrador, the charm disappears and he/she gives place to the feioso black. The second transformation that is the defined, happens when as for miracle he discovers a miraculous source that the measure that is going wetting its body is going leaving it white as the snow and in a person outwardly different.

Sex and Love

As white soon it conquers the a guerrilla fighter heart and using the sex as conquest instrument gets lover's status and its lover's dependent financier. Her not only he/she brings the money home, as well as he/she admires him for the pleasure that the same provides it. With the union, he/she is born other Macunaíma, that is its father's exact illustration when it was black. As the fatality came to destroy the lar, so much the mother as the son is killed by accident leaving it inconsolable.