Hercules (India, 1964)

I think that my relationship with Dara Singh is one of those that maintains its longevity by acting out its own demise at regular, cyclical intervals. The passion’s not always there, and there are times when I walk away in frustration. But I always come back. And one of the reasons that I do is that, despite the relationship being sustained by its fair share of compromise and lowered expectations, there are also those times when Dara unexpectedly comes home with a nice bouquet of flowers or box of chocolates. Hercules is that box of chocolates.

One of the reasons that I chose Hercules to begin this latest chapter in Dara’s and my journey through life together is that –- like the previously reviewed favorites The Thief of Baghdad and Golden Eyes: Secret Agent 077 –- it is the product of the Bohra Brothers, this time with brother Shreeram Bohra directing and Ramkumar Bohra producing. As I have come to expect from these aspiring kingpins of the 1960s stunt film, the end product is cheap but exceedingly colorful, and shows a real enthusiasm for being as entertaining as possible within its means.

Hercules, like Samson, is also one of those Dara Singh films that shows most clearly the influence of the Italian peplums. Such influence is to be expected, since the popularity of Italian sword and sandal films in India goes back to the silent era, when the original Maciste films starring former dockworker Bartolomeo Pagano drew crowds in Bombay’s theaters, and in fact had a formative influence on the Indian stunt genre as a whole. (That information from Valentina Vitali's Hindi Action Cinema: Industries, Narratives, Bodies) So strong is that influence in Hercules that it could almost be mistaken for one of the Steve Reeves or Brad Harris joints of its era, with all of the boulder hurling, leopard print sarong wearing, and dinosaur punching that that implies. That is, of course, except for all of the singing, and, this being a Dara Singh movie, the inordinate amount of wrestling.

As with many of Dara’s movies, Hercules begins with a nation’s throne being unlawfully seized, though this time, for once, not from Dara. Nevertheless, Dara’s Hercules promises his old ma that he will fight to restore that throne to its rightful heir, a blandly handsome entity by the name of Jesson. Now in that seat is the evil Maliz, who is played by B.M. Vyas, an actor who, in the 1960s, seemed to play all of those types of roles that would be played by Jeevan in the 1970s.

Of course, this being Hercules, the task of restoring Jesson to the throne involves a series of grueling and increasingly outlandish physical trials, the first of which involves Herc battling a Hydra that is at once both rubbery and conspicuously inflexible.

That done, Hercules and his loyal crew -- who seem a little heavily skewed toward the useless comic relief end -- set sail on a quest to find some kind of magical whose-a-ma-whatsit. It is at this point that things really kick into high gear, starting with the group getting shipwrecked on an island where the men all find themselves enchanted by a tribe of amazons lead by Helen. It is then up to Hercules’ lady love -- who, confusingly, is also named Helen, but is actually played by the actress Nishi (thanks, Memsaab!) -- to break the spell and get the guys back on point.

That done, Hercules and his men continue in pursuit of their true target: Medusa! Unfortunately, as fun as it would be to see how the filmmakers might realize a character whose hair is made of live snakes, the Bohras here cop out by making Medusa merely a gray wigged old crone with a creepy little gnome for a sidekick. Fortunately, Medusa later makes up for her lameness by turning into a giant Cyclops.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Because, before he can take on Medusa, Hercules must first battle a giant ape person and a pair of green and red painted guys who laugh in the extremely loud and forced manner that you would only if told the world’s least funny joke by a man who had your scrotum trapped in a drill press.

And then our hero must face the worst monster of all, Dara Singh arch ring nemesis and world’s least fit athlete, Hungarian wrestler Emile Czaja, aka King Kong!

Happily, once Medusa, King Kong and the Cyclops, et al. have been vanquished, the viewer need not fear that the mad monster party is over. For -- just as they did with The Thief of Baghdad -- the Bohras and cinematographer/special effects man B. Gupta have worked overtime to insure that Hercules is a creature-fest of the most generous order. Thus, once back in Greece, Hercules must do battle with yet another largely immobile example of cryptozoology in the form of a salamander-like dragon who needs a conspicuous amount of help from his opponent in order to maintain his threatening demeanor.

Finally, Hercules ends up chained to what looks like a giant bust of Sigmund Freud, at which point Helen shows up again to do a dagger dance very much like the one she did in The Thief of Baghdad, about which I have no complaints whatsoever.

And then Dara breaks loose to perform the requisite climactic act of pillar pulling, not to mention an awful lot of wrestling. And, yes, I am indeed giving you a very shorthand version of Hercules. For instance, as she so often does in Dara’s movies, Mumtaz makes an appearance, albeit in an uncharacteristically tiny role as a dancing oracle named Diana. Also, Dara manages at one point or another to strangle almost every male cast member in the film.

But why should I do all of the work for you, when doing it yourself is so much fun? Granted, the VCD I watched it on made the film look like it was shot inside a septic tank (a title card before the start of the movie read “This is an old film, so please cooperate with us”), but only in the land of Greek mythology could we ask for a miracle such as an obscure old Indian B movie being presented to us in a format that didn’t make it look like complete shit. Simply consider this the trial you must endure in order to reap the many rich rewards that Hercules has to offer. Go forward, heroes!

Friday's best pop song ever

The Bandits from Brazil, Part II

Read Part I 

As stated in the previous post, I haven’t been able to ascertain whether 1953’s O Cangaceiro represents the absolute ground zero of Cangaco as a film genre, although it can certainly be said that many similar films followed in its path. 1961’s A Morte Comanda O Cangaco sees O Cangaceiro’s Alberto Ruschel and Milton Ribiero once again pitted against one another, this time with Ruschel playing a rancher -- perhaps with a past as a bandit himself (sorry, no English subtitles) -- who goes to war against the vicious band of Cangaceiros lead by Ribiero, who appears to be playing a slightly less nuanced version of the same character he played in O Cangaceiro.

It doesn’t take long to notice that A Morte is a much more violent and action driven film than O Cangaceiro, featuring frequent shootouts, chases, and instances of sweaty hand-to-hand combat. We are even given a glimpse of the gruesome aftermath of a beheading, in a “how bad are they” moment in which Ruschel’s character finds that the gang has stuck his feisty old Grannie’s head on a pike. These elements combine with the film’s bombastic score, endless sunny vistas, and the comparably broad moral line drawn between its heroes and villains to make A Morte seem much more like a traditional American Western than O Cangaceiro. The most identifiably Brazilian aspect of it, as with O Cangaceiro, is the heavy hand of Christianity that hangs over it, exemplified by a very Christ-like holy man who wanders in and out of the narrative in order to give the other players a moment of moral pause.

This is all not to say that A Morte Comanda O Cangaco is not an enjoyable film; as a straightforward shoot-em-up it is, in fact, a finely tuned machine. However, while every bit as technically accomplished as O Cangaceiro, it lacks the tragic element that lent that earlier film its gravity. Nonetheless, it should easily appeal to fans of Hollywood’s Technicolor-hued cowboy epics, and even fans of Spaghetti Westerns.

A Morte director Carlos Coimbra was known in particular for his Cagaceiro films, among which -- in addition to A Morte -- were 1964’s Lampiao, King of the Badlands and 1967’s Cangaceiros de Lampiao, both of which starred the dependably fearsome Ribiero.  Coimbra would return to the genre in 1997 for a planned remake of the original O Cangaceiro. Unfortunately, illness would ultimately prevent him from taking the director’s seat, and the film instead had to be finished by Anibal Massaini Neto, with Coimbra credited as production supervisor.

The first, most noticeable departure that Neto’s O Cangaceiro takes from its source material is its use of a framing device by which the story is told from the perspective of Tico, a young boy adopted by the Cangaceiros, who relays the events from his prison cell as an elderly man. The second is how much more explicit and plentiful the film is in its presentation of violence. The branding of the woman, occurring off-screen in the original, is shown in loving detail, while, elsewhere, heads are hacked off with abandon, and a protracted torture scene is crowned with a tongue being graphically cut out. At the same time, Neto spices up the tale’s romantic tensions with a generous apportionment of nudity and simulated sex.

In keeping with this grand guignol tone, actor Paul Gorgulho’s portrayal of Captain Gardino is much more that of your traditional, cackling, homicidal maniac than seen previously. On the other hand, the police -- who are never the good guys in these films -- have their demonic nature bluntly driven home by a gang rape sequence that is bald faced in it prurience. In most other respects, the film follows the template of the original in a fairly literal minded fashion, while failing completely to approach its level of artistry and nuance -- a shortcoming exemplified by the filmmakers’ perceived need to supply an audience surrogate, and an infantilized one at that. In fact, Neto’s unflagging insistence upon orienting our perspective from Tico’s point of view becomes at once both laughable and annoying, with even the most intimate moments requiring a shot of Tico watching surreptitiously from a hiding place in some tree or shrub to set it up.

In the plus column, the film, like the original, features a lot of wonderful music, although the song numbers are less naturalistically integrated into the action and, as a result, often come across as being a bit canned. This, along with the movie’s moments of Telenovela level melodrama, might serve as an obstacle to those who want to enjoy this O Cangaceiro for the energetic piece of misleadingly pedigreed trash cinema that it ultimately is, but I would nonetheless not attempt to discourage them from trying to do so.

All in all, Neto’s take on O Cangaceiro seems to be the endpoint of a long journey that saw the Cangaco genre, from its point of inception, veering increasingly into the realm of exploitation cinema. The concept even received the sexploitation treatment in the mid 70s, with films like Roberto Mauro’s As Cangaceiras Eroticas -- in which a gang of female bandits have their way with their male victims -- and Al Ilha das Cangaceiras Virgens. One notable detour into respectability was 1964’s Deus e o Diablo na Terra do Sol, which was released internationally as Black God, White Devil. Directed by the then 25 year old Glauber Rocha -- who was at the forefront of Brazil’s French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realist inspired Cinema Novo movement -- it is today widely considered to be one of the greatest of all Brazilian films.

Deus begins with a shot of flies feasting on the head of a dead cow, after which we are introduced to Manuel and Rosa (Geraldo Del Rey and Yona Magalhaes), a cowherd and his wife whose life of grinding poverty in the barren Northeast has apparently driven them nearly mad with despair. After Manuel murders a wealthy rancher who was trying to cheat him, the two go on the run, taking shelter among the followers of a charismatic holy man called Sebastian. Rosa watches in dismay as the simple Manuel, desperate for any shred of hope, is seduced by the preacher’s utopian prophecies, eventually becoming so wildly enrapt that he is willing to sacrifice his own newborn son on Sebastian’s altar. Rosa kills Sebastian in a rage, but only moments before the encampment is attacked by a band of mercenaries lead by the famed Cangaceiro hunter Antonio Das Mortes (Mauricio Do Valle), who has been hired by local clergy and business leaders to eliminate the threat to the status quo that Sebastian and his devotees represent. All of the followers are slaughtered, except for Manuel and Rosa, whom Antonio leaves alive to tell the tale.

Manuel and Rosa next fall into the company of Captain Corisco (Othon Bastos), a lone, raving Cangaceiro, who brings with him news of the recent deaths of Lampião and Maria Bonita. Proclaiming that he now houses the spirit of the legendary outlaw within himself, Corisco grandiosely pledges himself to avenging Lampião’s murder. Manuel, having already proven himself easy prey for such charismatic madmen, is quick to throw his lot in with Corisco, and ends up joining him on a senseless campaign of rape, torture and murder. Meanwhile, the forces of Antonio Das Mortes, for whom Corisco is a prize target, close in on the group.

Compared to the Cangaco films previously discussed, Deus e o Diablo na Terra do Sol is art house with a capital “A”. It alternates between long, wordless takes and sudden, jarring transitions, contrasting moments of harsh naturalism against sequences that are self consciously stagey in their composition. As other reviews have mentioned, it’s hard not to see in its mix of grit and surrealism a precursor to Jodorowsky’s El Topo. Yet, while El Topo, if archly, borrows from classic Western iconography in the presentation of its outlaw protagonist, Deus’ version of the Cangaceiro is one coolly stripped of all romantic trappings. For Rocha, a figure like Captain Corisco is as much an exploiter of the poor’s desperation and vulnerability as is a religious opportunist like Sebastian, or the wealthy landowner who attempts to swindle Manuel at the film’s beginning.

The uncompromising bleakness of its vision makes Deus a film that is every bit as difficult as Neto’s retake on O Cangaceiro is nakedly pandering. As a result, it might be hard going for those more predisposed to enjoying the shoot-em-up trappings of those films in the Cangaco genre that I discussed earlier. For myself, I have to say that, while especially prone to the colorful thrills of a crowd-pleaser like A Morte Comanda O Cangaco, I appreciated each of those films, Deus included, on their own markedly varying terms, while at the same time being impressed by their heterogeneity overall.

As always, any additional information that readers can supply on this subject would be greatly appreciated. Groping blindly through the less brightly lit corners of world cinema the way I tend to is a means of endlessly generating new grounds for apology, and there will likely be major holes in the information I’ve related above. After all, my previous exposure to Brazilian films of the vintage of O Cangaceiro and its progeny was limited to the exploits of Coffin Joe. I only ask that those more knowledgeable than myself see my fumblings for the desperate cry for help that they are, take pity, and provide me with whatever information they can so that I may be set on the path toward being, well, at least marginally less ignorant. Believe me, I welcome the journey –- especially if that path is paved with more films as uniquely thrilling as those I’ve attempted to describe.

The Bandits from Brazil, Part I

The Cangaco -- or Cangaceiro -- films of Brazil could be seen as spiritual cousins to both the Narcotraficante films that were popular in Mexico during the 80s and the Dacoit and “Daku” films that the regional film industries of India continue to churn out to this very day. All three genres seek to romanticize the mythology surrounding a real and very culturally specific breed of outlaw, while playing up that outlaw’s violent exploits for sensational effect. In fact, you could even add Hong Kong’s Triad, Japan’s pre-70s Yakuza, and most American Mafia movies to that list, as well.

The Cangaceiros were tribes of nomadic bandits who roamed the inhospitable and arid Northeastern territories of Brazil during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Primarily members of the peasant class, many of them took to the outlaw life as a reaction against the depredations of corrupt government officials and members of the land owning class. While they could be brutal in dealing with those who stood in their way (they didn’t carry those long fish-gutting knives solely for decoration), they could also be generous to those among the populace who gave them support in the form of shelter, protection, or material aid. Because of this, they were seen as Robin Hood-like figures by many among the region’s poor. And the Cangaceiros, with their distinctive headwear and flamboyant leather outfits, ornamented with coins and bits of scrap metal hand-stitched into them, presented an image that was ripe for mythologizing.

The most famous of the Cangaceiros was Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, who came to be known as “Lampião”, a Portuguese word meaning “oil lamp” or “lantern”. Lampião’s turn toward the outlaw life was precipitated by his father’s murder at the hands of police, and he proved himself to be particularly ruthless in exacting revenge against those he deemed responsible. He was famously joined in his exploits by his lover Maria Dea, who herself came to be known as “Maria Bonita”, the two of them having a long run that ended only when they were killed by police in 1938.

In the years since, the pair have become folk heroes, celebrated in every iteration of their nation’s popular culture, including books, songs, television soap operas, and, of course, feature films. These latter sometimes came in the form of fictionalized recountings of the adventures of Lampião himself, but were just as likely to be celebrations of the Cangaceiro lifestyle as a whole, often drawing upon thinly veiled elements of the famous bandit’s story for their content.

I’ve been unable to find information on any Cangaceiro film made prior to director Lima Barreto’s 1953 O Cangaceiro. But, whether or not O Cangaceiro was the first Cangaco film, it was certainly the first to put the genre on the map. After winning the prize for best adventure film at Cannes in 1953, the film went on to gain international distribution through Columbia Pictures, and saw release in the U.S. in the summer of 1954. Though its impact seems to have faded over the years, it made enough of a sensation abroad to merit hit versions of its theme song -- retitled “The Bandit” -- being released by English speaking artists as diverse as Percy Faith and Tex Ritter. It is also the likely inspiration for the 1969 Italian film O Cangaceiro -- aka Viva Cangaceiro -- which, while not a remake of the 1953 film, did see Spaghetti Western mainstay Thomas Milian riding the hostile plains of Brazil’s Northeast in full Cangaceiro regalia.

Although the highbrow accolades it received might lead you to expect otherwise, O Cangaceiro, while artfully made, falls squarely within the realm of popular entertainment, and shows no small influence of the classic Hollywood Westerns. At the same time, it sacrifices none of its cultural distinctiveness. It’s also interesting to note that the film makes no attempt to soft pedal the brutality of the Cangaceiros, but instead contrasts it against the actions of a sympathetic member of the gang who, as a result those actions, finds himself at odds with the rest.

The film begins with the looting of a small town by a band of Cangaceiros lead by the fearsome and brutish Captain Galdino (Milton Ribeiro). Among the spoils taken back to the gang’s encampment is the captive schoolteacher Olivia (Marisa Prado). We’ve already seen how the bandits treat their female prisoners –- a woman in the town is branded with a hot iron bearing the gang’s insignia, and another woman in the camp, whose face bears the same disfiguring mark, appears to have been driven mad by her experiences -- so the outlook for this newest hostage isn’t a bright one. Fortunately, Galdino’s soulful young lieutenant Teodoro (Alberto Ruschel) is moved by Olivia’s beauty and stoic dignity, and decides to personally escort her to safety.

From this point on, O Cangaceiro chronicles Teodoro and Olivia’s flight across the desert, pursued all the while by the enraged Galdino and the rest of his gang, who, in turn, must fend off the heavily ordnanced government militia that is now on their tail. Teodoro and Olivia find time for fleeting moments of romance, but ultimately theirs is a doomed love. Sending her off alone, Teodoro returns to face his pursuers, and singlehandedly holds off the entire band in a grim standoff that lasts through the night and into the following morning. Of course, no criminal underclass worth mythologizing on film is complete without its own peculiar code of honor, and Teodoro’s finally drives him to surrender and meet the tragic yet noble fate that awaits him.

As one might expect -- or hope -- from a Brazilian film, music is central to O Cangaceiro. One of its highpoints, in fact, occurs at a moment of respite from the otherwise driving narrative, during a campfire scene in which a trio of stirring traditional sounding songs are performed by the Cangaceiros -- first by the group, and then, for a more mournful number, by one of the gang’s female members. The instrumental score by Gabriel Migliori, which was singled out for special mention at Cannes, is also a pleasure to the ears, being both lively and impressively varied. Taken all together, the rich, sensuous, and unmistakably Brazilian textures of this music are a fitting compliment to first-time feature director Barreto’s sumptuous visual style, which -- whether involving a disarmingly intimate close-up on an actor’s face, or a wide shot capturing the alien beauty of the Northeastern terrain -- is notable for the seductive depth of its black and white compositions.

O Cangaceiro was one of the last productions from Brazil’s Vera Cruz Studios, who spared little expense in insuring that it would be competitive with the products of other, more developed national cinemas. And it is indeed a film that is both beautiful in appearance and assured in construction. It is also marked by a number of strong performances, among them that of Milton Ribeiro, who could easily have settled for making his Captain Galindo little more than a fearsome caricature, but instead chose to lend him an air of defiant dignity as a counterbalance to his ferociousness. As a result of his outstanding work here, Ribeiro secured himself fairly steady employment in what would come to be, over the coming decades, a staple genre of Brazilian cinema.

Continued in Part II