Film
Bye, Bye Brazil
In Portuguese with English
subtitles
Starring Jose Wilker, Betty Fa
ria
Directed by Carlos Diegues
Valley River Twin
If you’ve ever dreamed of
stealing a million in diamonds
and heading for Brazil, then you
should see Bye Bye Brazil. The
film is one of the latest Brazilian
movies to make a moderate
splash in the American film
market.
A comedy about the disor
ienting effects American cultur
al penetration has on a nation
trying frenziedly to catch up to
the United States, the film offers
an irreverent glimpse into a
changing Brazil that American
bank robbers squandering their
loot on Rio de Janeiro mulattas
never see.
Without so much as a single
shout of Yankee go-home, film
maker Carlos Diegues humor
ously, and at times poignantly,
lets his audience see how the
American cultural onslaught is
bulldozing aside traditional
Brazilian culture just like the
new roads punch through the
fragile Amazon jungle. The re
sult of this ravaging is a cheap
South American copy of the
United States, a kind of cultural
wasteland.
The film's leading actor, Jose
Wilker, travels through that
wasteland making a living
selling cheap thrills to the ig
norant townspeople of Brazil’s
poverty-stricken northeast.
Wilker, best known to American
audiences as the profligate
husband Vadinho in Dona Flor
and Her Two Husbands, plays
his role of itinerant huckster to
the hilt, letting us see that ben
eath his self-confident show
manship he’s a scruffy operator
only slightly less ignorant than
most of his audience.
Although Americans may find
Wilker’s flaky male chauvinism
hard to take, his great satirical
scenes are not to be over
looked. During one road show,
he delivers on a promise to
make it snow in tropical Brazil
by dropping mounds of coconut
flakes on the audience. With a
great flourish he says, only half
sarcastically, “And now in
Brazil, as in the U.S., France,
Germany, old England and all
the civilized countries, there is
snow.”
Wilker's schlock traveling
road show, Cam aval Rolidei, is
a metaphor for contemporary
Brazil, a nation obsessed with
moving ahead but changing
more than progressing.
Wilker's small-time hype,
laughable to a sophisticated
audience, only highlights the
pathetic gullibility of the poor
rural folk he encounters in
poverty-stricken northeast
Brazil.
Diegues uses the backland
couple Cico and Dasdo, who
are caught up by the tinsel al
lure of Carnaval Rolidei, as al
legorical figures for Brazilians
undergoing modernization.
Like Cico, who ignores his
good and simple wife and lusts
after the cheap beauty of the
show's jaded Rumba Queen
Salome (Betty Faria), Brazilians
are buying the trappings of
modern American prosperity at
the expense of developing their
own cultural wealth.
The film also captures per
fectly the Brazilian belief in the
Amazon's supernatural poten
tial. The exaggerated expecta
tions placed on the Amazon to
solve a host of problems facing
the country are easily seen
when Wilker takes the road
show into the jungle frontier
lands where he promises they’ll
find the ground littered with
precious stones
Instead, they find boomtowns
.
INCREDIBLE
WOMAN
LILY TOMLIN CHARLES GRODIN NED BEATTY A LIJA Production
“THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN”
Written by JANE WAGNER Music by SUZANNE ClANI Produced by HANK MOONJEAN
Executive Producer |ANE WAGNER Directed by JOEL SCHUMACHER A UNIVERSAL PICTURE
Read the IOVE Book • Cooyrieht © 1980 by Universal City Studios. Inc. FGlwwawt Rim#* SUOBKliO
OPENING JANUARY 30 AT A THEATRE NEAR YOU
filled with corruption and In
dians jerked out of age-old cul
tural patterns into an unsure
modern present.
The film’s characters have a
childish belief that American
know-how makes everything
possible. In one scene, workers
are being recruited for the con
troversial Jari Project (an Amer
ican development company) in
the Amazon. The recruiter relies
mostly on the project’s gringo
backing to convince Brazilians
it’s a sure bet.
But even without all the social
commentary, Bye Bye Brazil
offers plenty of hijinks, the richly
soft music of Chico Buarque,
and lots of flesh — hence its R
rating. If nothing else, it’s a film
to sit back and enjoy.
By Jim Gersbach
Variety is
key ingredient
Miscellaneous music
notes .
Tonight in room 167 of the
EMU on campus the EMU Cul
tural Forum presents a Songw
riters' Showcase. The show
case features local area singer
songwriters Emmy Fox, Barney
Barbour, Cecelia Ostrow and
Percy Hilo. Discussion will fol
low the performance scheduled
for 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. The folk
songs to be performed are all
original and range in variety
from political consciousness
songs to intimate, personal bal
lads. For further information call
the Cultural Forum at 686-4373.
The Community Center for
the Performing Arts (CCPA)
welcomes Emery, Schmidt &
McCann, purveyors of back
woods jazz to the W O W. Hall
Saturday and Sunday at 9:30
p.m. Playing dancing jazz with a
traditional Irish and a bit of
bebop for flavor on Saturday,
these three jazz musicians
change the pace on Sunday
night with a sit down concert.
Tickets are $3 in advance, $3.50
on the day of the show. Tickets
are available at House of
Records, EMU Main Desk and
the CCPA. Call 687-2746 for
more information.
Sunday at 4 p.m. is the benefit
concert for the winners of the
Oregon District Metropolitan
Opera National Council Audi
tions. Sponsored by the Port
land Opera Guild in cooperation
with the Eugene Opera, Susan
St. John and Philip Kelsey will
perform in Beall Hall on cam
pus. Admission is a tax deducti
ble donation of $3 for general
admission; $2 for seniors and
students. Further donations are
welcome.
’S
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