Arsenevich: Nelson Pereira dos Santos

Vidas secas

Vidas secas narra la historia de una familia –Fabiano, su mujer, la sinhá Vitória, y sus dos hijos– en el nordeste brasilero de los años cuarenta. Huyendo de la sequía, Fabiano llega a una pequeña propiedad rural donde es contratado como peón para cuidar del ganado y prestar pequeños servicios.

Fabiano es engañado por el propietario de la tierra, quien no le paga lo que le debe. Un día – en ocasión de una breve visita al pueblo para asistir a una fiesta religiosa – Fabiano se ve mezclado en una pelea, encarcelado, azotado y humillado. La sequía vuelve y la familia se ve obligada a emigrar nuevamente. Esta vez en dirección a la ciudad. Con la esperanza de que allí no haya miseria y de que los hijos, un día, “dejen de ser animales”.

Película emblemática del Cinema Novo si las hay. Imperdible.

Subs en castellano míos, hechos hace milenios

Barren Lives

Filmed with a strong sense of compassion for the impoverished and an underlying hatred for the injustice which forces them into the lives they must live, this is one of the first works from Brazil's Cinema Novo. A poor Brazilian family struggles to earn a living when they take a job overseeing the livestock of a wealthy rancher. They move into an abandoned house, and their fortunes begin to take an upward turn. The father is duped into a card game with a crooked local policeman. The ranch hand protests, and a fight ensues that results in his beating by the cop. Despite being the victim of injustice, the man believes there should be some semblance of law and order and makes no protest about the incident. A severe drought has the man moving on from the ranch with his family to earn their living elsewhere.

Although the intention with Vidas Secas was to join the national debate on the subject of agrarian reform, Nelson Pereira dos Santos had no need of didacticisms or political language in order to get his message across and, likewise, discarded any sentimentality in the film's approach to the problem. He based the film on the Graciliano Ramos novel by the same name, which although written in 1938 remained topical in 1964—as it does, in dramatic terms, forty-four years on. Among the film's merits is its fidelity to the spirit of Graciliano Ramos's text, with its concise style and literary qualities.