(Left to right), Actor José Wilker, Betty Faria, Fábio Júnior, and director Carlos Diegues
Actor José Wilker in Rio de Janeiro
BYE BYE BRAZIL (Bye
Bye Brasil) A-
Brazil France
Argentina (110 mi) 1980 d:
Carlos Diegues
To the Brazilian people of the 21st Century
―title card at the
end of the final credits
A tragi-comic road
movie that literally goes in search of the Brazilian soul in this episodic
quest for national identity, traveling some 9000 miles across a vast
everchanging landscape into the heart of the Amazon, using a near documentary
style of social realism mixed with flourishes of blatant theatricality in the
form of Caravana Rolidei (Circus Holiday), a traveling circus group that scours
the backwater towns in search of an audience, only to be thwarted by progress,
as the national past time is watching TV, with viewers glued to the sets,
disinterested in anything this road show can offer. The overly flamboyant leader of the troupe is
illusionist and “King of Dreams” Lord Cigano, José Wilker from Doña
Flor and Her Two Husbands (Doña Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) (1976) playing
another larger-than-life yet morally dubious role, basically a swindler and
scam artist in search of an easy mark, joined by his precocious lover Salomé
(Betty Faria), an exotic rhumba dancer who’s not afraid to step into the back
room for a price, and deaf-mute Andorinha, aka Swallow (Príncipe Nabor), a
black indigenous strong man and human flamethrower who also brings in wads of
cash from high stakes arm-wrestling wagers (whose silence may reflect how the
indigenous have been omitted from history).
The show is distinguished by a colorfully decorated truck that announces
its arrival by loudspeaker, with master of ceremony Lord Cigano, outrageously
dressed in a cape with clothes the color of the Brazilian flag, his face caked
with make-up, resorting to exaggerated bravado and flowery language in
describing what secrets are in store, always advertised as the greatest or most
spectacular, yet in truth it’s a flimsy act barely worth one’s trouble, which
is why they have to go deeper and deeper into the hinterlands to find places
that buy into all the hyperbole. The
story becomes more about the people themselves, both the performers and the
world at large, as it’s a beguiling and strangely compelling exposé of the slow
transition into modernization, highlighted by the construction of the
tree-lined Trans-Amazonian Highway that cuts through the heart of the
rainforest and jungle, an ambitious project that connected the Northeast, the
North, and the Central Plateau, previously isolated regions, each with their
own cultural identities. This roadway
connection is an attempt to unify the country, but it comes at a price, as it’s
massively expensive and destroys much of the natural world, literally plundering
the resources from the rainforests, including lumber and mining development,
causing pollution and water contamination, literally driving indigenous groups
out of the forests, sending them into the cities where little opportunity
awaits them, as companies either refuse to hire them or pay significantly less
wages, a holdover of centuries of discrimination. Additionally, government social services are
unable to keep up with the population flow streaming into the cities looking
for work, offering neighborhood slums for new arrivals in contrast to sleek
modern skyscrapers.
Opening on the banks
of the São Francisco River, we see river transport as the primary means of
travel, a connection to the past, featuring a small traditional village with
colonial architecture, street vendors selling herbs and various handicrafts,
with folk music playing in the background.
Witnessing the performance is a peasant farmer and youthful accordionist
Ciço (Fábio Júnior), grown weary of tilling the family’s barren lands, dreaming
of faraway places with hopes of viewing the sea, along with his pregnant wife
Dasdô (Zaira Zambelli), who barely utters a word in the entire film, yet has a
profound effect, as her understated innocence and untainted vulnerability are
the heart of the film, the only one without a motive, observing without making
judgment, yet enduring it all, eventually bearing a child, ushering in a new
future. As the Caravana is leaving town,
Ciço begs to come along, claiming he can play music, breaking into an
invigorating tune, but they leave without him, only to back up and bring them
along, with his accordion music playing as they head down the highway,
initially to the sea, satisfying one of Ciço’s dreams, before cutting through
the tropics in search of less developed regions outside the reach of advancing
progress. The seedy theatrical troupe
recalls Bergman’s Sawdust
and Tinsel (Gycklarnas afton) (1953), also bearing some resemblance to the
traveling artists in Fellini’s LA STRADA (1954), where a more innocent
Gelsomina is forced to contend with brutally crude strongman Zampanó, yet in
each this life on the road was a means to escape the entrenched exploitation of
the poor, offering a chance at something better, even if they barely made ends
meet. Much of what these films
encapsulate is a dream for a better future, an attempt to overcome the dire
impoverished circumstances of the past.
Diegues has a talent for the gritty realism of roadside photojournalism,
adding a layer of complexity, capturing the melancholy uniqueness of each small
village, exposing rural poverty and the inescapable reality of
underdevelopment, carrying goods by ox cart, including the belongings of
desperate people on the side of the road, as the stark imagery from
cinematographer Lauro Escorel is as expressive in intimate moments as the
sweeping jungle landscapes, becoming our visual guide through the journey. Following shortly after the magnificent Wim
Wenders film, Kings
of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit) Road Trilogy Pt. 3 (1976), there’s a curious
American influence to both films, not just musically but in the presence of
pinball machines in the jungle, or an indigenous family sipping coca cola,
wearing designer jeans, eating ice-cream for the first time or listening to
transistor radios, where their dream is to fly in an airplane. While imagery may be what’s most remarkable
about the film, they are accompanied by Chico Buarque’s uplifting soundtrack.
Featuring the
contradictions brought on by globalization, with incomplete transitional stages
in effect, where backwater squalor is set against a teeming urban metropolis,
offering absurdly funny yet also bleakly sad reflections on the cultural impact
felt across the nation. The film
reflects the changing culture of the country as it was making its
transformation from military rule to a democratic government, as a rural-based
society was heading towards rapid industrialization and urban migration. Large-scale road development stimulated
improved mass communication, particularly television, where broadcasting to all
Brazilians was becoming possible. With a
remote interior village of Altamira advertised as a promised land, supposedly
with food and wealth for everyone, a literal paradise on earth, they are
surprised to discover it’s just another dusty village, a site where
multi-national mining corporations are recruiting workers, flying them to
remote locations where they’ll no doubt live in shabby conditions owned by the
company, basically fleecing them with promises that never come, likely stuck in
unimaginable filth and poverty, subjected to hazardous working conditions. Dasdô delivers her baby out in the middle of
an endless jungle, a baby girl, prompting Salomé to suggest it’s time for them
to go, but Ciço is smitten by the exotic sensuality of Salomé, wanting to run
away with her instead, but she sticks with Cigano, loyal to a fault. Nevertheless, this tug of war of divergent
interests keeps things interesting, with something unexpected always waiting in
store for them, finding it more and more difficult to earn money, becoming destitute
along the way, losing everything, forced into desperate straits, where they
scatter like the winds. Ciço and Dasdô
make their way to Brasília, becoming part of a musical band in the local disco
as the years pass, with mother and daughter on the triangles, doing backland
variations of Bee-Gees songs, apparently doing fairly well for themselves when
Ciço hears the familiar sounds of the truck loudspeakers promising an enchanted
show. Outside, a thoroughly modernized
version of the Caravana Rolidey (now with a spelling correction) awaits,
updated with dancing girls, a light show, and the crass commercialization of
Frank Sinatra singing on cue, Frank Sinatra - Brazil
(1958) - YouTube (2:55), with obscene sexual images painted onto the sides
of the bus, led by the same enchanted duo of Lord Cigano and Salomé, suggesting
sex never goes out of style. Despite the
allure of getting the band back together again, Ciço defers, liking the way
things are, no longer searching for that elusive dream that never comes. As the neon-lit bus heads down the road in
pitch blackness, Cigano claps his hands and conjures up a morning sunshine,
like Prospero in The Tempest,
suggesting there’s something inherently magical about being Brazilian after
all.
