Quilombo
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Film: B-
Carlos Diegues’ Quilombo (1984) begins as a
frightening, bold indictment of slavery, then quickly veers off into a take of
black slaves running away into the deep mountains of Brazil circa the 17th
Century. The title refers to the
civilization they built via tribes and government. The remainder of the film is spent showing the rise and
continuation of this in the face of nowhere else to turn, their own conflicts
and how much worse the outside world would be.
As blunt as the film can be, the only problem is that
after the initial sequence of slavery, it may veer too dangerously far away and
offer idiot revisionists the chance to say something in the area of how the
slavery was not so bad and how happy they were on their own and even that they
had the option not to be slaves!
Otherwise, it is like no other film you will see on the subject of these
forgotten people and is definitely worth a look.
The letterboxed 1.66 X 1 image shows it’s age a bit, but
also demonstrates cinematographer Lauro Escorel Filho’s colorful and starkly
naturalistic work. The Dolby Digital
Portuguese 2.0 is pretty monophonic, but as clean and clear for such a
production of its age can be expected to be.
Extras include four trailers for other New Yorker DVDs, a fifth for this
film and a 42-minutes-long documentary.
The latter is a plus and enhances the film very well.
- Nicholas Sheffo
