User Reviews

A stylish Brazilian movie perfectly fit in the best tradition of Western genre. The close ups and vicous laughs are there, and so are the hill gunfights and the wide open scenes of a lone horseman, and there are even a duel and bar brawl! Besides that, it is a revenge story against violent outlaws. This typical Western is, however, also very Brazilian, both in the soundrack and in the background - a violence practiced by cangaceiros (besides the one by "volantes", the policemen who beheaded cangaceiros after killing them). The usage of dissonant sounds and slow trembling camera movements were a skillful way to portray the suffering in the brutal offense in the beginning (avoiding spoiler here...). The dynamics between the cangaceiros is also nice, exploring each one as an unique individual despite being a somewhat homogeneous group. The reactions of the only female cangaceira in the film are also meaningful (and what means being a woman in that environment), and so are the common people's attitudes. The title is somewhat misleading, as the feud is not against famous Lampião band, but against outlaws, lead my Moita Brava, who survived the historical ambush. The are cangaço films in which cangaceiros are (anti) heroes and thi are other movies in which they are contradictory human beings. This Northeastern is none of them: here they are as evil as the black-hatted gunslingers in Hollywood Old West and as the dirty scarfaces in spaghetti Westerns. Besides well filmed and acted, music is good and dialogs are excellent. Carlos Coimbra made an authoral cinema in the 60's that worth seeing.