Two films made in 2019 mark the resurgence of Brazilian cinema: Dornelles’ and Filho’s joint effort Bacurau (a Cannes film festival winner) and debutant Maya Da-Rin’s The Fever (a Chicago international film festival winner). The following citation for the Chicago win is a good encapsulation of the merits of the second film, The Fever:
""The Silver Hugo for Best Director goes to Maya Da-Rin for her debut fiction feature The Fever. The film drifts between dream and reality, portraying with both tenderness and precision the world of an indigenous father and daughter in the north of Brazil. It takes us into the family and their hearts, but never forgets the importance of the political context." Citation for the award from the Chicago International film Festival
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| Justino (Regis Myrupu), a denizen of the Amazon rainforest, chooses to work as a security guard in Manaus, where instead of trees, he is surrounded by steel containers shipping goods |
Director Maya Da-Rin was into ethnographic documentary filmmaking
in Brazil before she decided to make her first fictional feature film The Fever. Ms Da-Rin has had sufficient interactions with
the indigenous native tribes of Brazil while making her ethnographic documentaries
that preceded this feature film. Those interactions gave her the idea to write
a script for a feature fiction film focussing on the migration of the forest
dwelling tribes to nearby cities for the sake of jobs, education and
healthcare. One of Da-Rin’s two co-scriptwriters is a full time anthropologist Pedro
Cesarino. The Fever is tale of
Justino (Regis Myrupu), a Desana tribal who comes to the city of Manaus on the
banks of the Amazon River, in the middle of the rain forest, to work as a guard
at a river port where containers are berthed before or after being transported
across oceans. Manaus has evolved as a major duty free zone port city in Brazil.
The genesis and the creation of Da-Rin’s film are very
similar to Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela.
another 2019 film, this time from Portugal. Both films are distinguished by
their original screenplays developed by their respective directors after
discussing with people about their own experiences that ultimately get
projected so realistically in the films. Both films are in Portuguese language:
one made in Brazil, the other in Portugal. Both films mainly rely on non-professional
actors who incidentally have been rewarded internationally for their
performances. Both films have most sequences shot at night time with an obvious
absence of natural light. Both films were major winners at the 2019 Locarno
film festival in Switzerland. The two films underscore the effectiveness of
directors to conceive of films by talking to people and developing their films
from ideas that emerge from real conversations with people living on the
margins of contemporary society,
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| Justino with his daughter, who aspires to be a doctor |
The fever in the film relates to a realistic medical
condition that affects Justino, the guard working in Manaus. Medical tests
conducted do not reveal any known disease. Justino is a widower and a Christian
(most Desana tribals are apparently Christians)
living with his daughter, who is studying medicine and a recent recipient
of a scholarship for further medical studies in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital, to
become a medical doctor. The scholarship
means a great deal for the young lady but this development hurts her father as
he realizes that he will be deprived of her company in Manaus for the next 5
years. The fever is perhaps also linked
to Justino’s brother’s social visit to Manaus making both brothers recall their
early lives as happy hunters in the Amazonian rain forest, content hunting for
fresh food in the forest rather than shop for food in the supermarkets.
Justino’s brother wants Justino to return to the forests but Justino does not seem
to agree, claiming that his employers won’t let go of him and even has a
plastic smile when says he “will be fine” after his daughter departs for
Brasilia.
Da-Rin’s film explores at a secondary level the true relationship
between the employer and the employee, Justino. Even though he has been an
ideal worker for a long while, the Human Resource department summons him to
state that he could be fired without compensation as he has been found dozing
at work. The film explores racism, too.
A greenhorn guard joins Justino’s shift and decides to call him “Indio”
rather than Justino. It is this work scenario that Justino describes as one
where “his employer won’t let him go.”
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| Justino (extreme right) with his brother and family enjoying food from the rainforest |
At a third level, there is the psychological beckoning of
Justino by the rain forest and its fauna. The food that Justino’s brother
brings with him to Manaus attracts Justino’s taste buds by its taste,
encouraging him to consider returning to the forest. The strange sounds of
fauna heard on the forest edges of Manaus city at night seems to communicate
with Justino. But the viewer is never shown the mysterious animal by the director. A section of the Manaus population alleges that
the animal killed a pig. It is possibly the same animal that made a hole in the
fence of the port’s facilities that Justino meticulously guards. The mysterious
animal also seems to be trying to connect with Justino.
The fever is a metaphor
transcending medical knowledge in this film. It suggests a connection between
animals, spirits and humans that the rainforest tribes believe in and the
fever seems to attract Justino back to the forest. Whether Justino does return
or whether he dreams of his return is for the viewer to figure out. The film ends with a song sung on the
soundtrack that ambiguously states: “This is
why I have come to talk to you. Like our ancestors, we must live with strength
and courage”
At the Locarno film festival, the film’s director Da-Rin
indicated her antipathy towards the Bolsonaro regime that is cutting down the
rainforests to encourage industry and corporate farming, at the cost of
precious natural genetic resources and disrupting the world of the tribes who
lived in harmony with rainforest for centuries.
Films like Vitalina
Varela and The Fever open up
exciting, reflective cinema for serious film viewers while encouraging a new
method of developing original scripts and the employment of non-professionals
as actors who go on to win awards. These films are indeed different from the usual.
P.S. The Fever is one of the author's top 20 films of 2019. Much of the dialogues quoted above are from memory of a
single viewing and are approximations. The film won the Best Actor award for
actor Regis Myrupu and the FIPRESCI prize for the best film at the Locarno Film
Festival; the Silver Hugo Award for the best director at the Chicago
International Film Festival; the Best Latin American Film Award at the Mar del
Plata Film Festival (Argentina); the Roberto Rossellini award at the Pingyao International Film
Festival (China); and the Silver Alexander Award as the Special Jury Prize at
the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greece).The Brazilian film Bacurau and the Portuguese film Vitalina Varela have been reviewed earlier on this blog. (Click on the names of the films
in this post-script to access the reviews.)
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