This second report made by French filmmaker Chris Marker on Brazil during the hard years of the military regime revolves on Communist guerrilla leader
Carlos Marighella, his trajectory as a fighter against dictatorship, and his ultimately violent death on the hands of police forces in 1969. It was shown to
French audiences and banned in Brazil at the time, but today it can be seen all over the world. To Brazilian audiences it's a real fascinating treat as for
the level of information Marker had access to, both for the countless photograph stills and film reels obtained, and also the anonymous Brazilian he
interview living on exile in Cuba and France - the other report he made related with exiled rebels who suffered torture in prison cells.
It's a great presentation of events, facts on Marighella and the whole struggle faced by the regime oppositors, and it's all done in a summarized and
informative manner that it's easy to follow. I was mostly impressed by the ammount of unseen images and audios from the period, specially a radio broadcast
of Marighella addressing the nation when he invaded the signal of a radio station (a moment that appears in the 2019 biopic). It feels as if Mr. Marker knew
more about Brazil than our people (even by today's standards).
Nothing to complain about the film. Maybe if there's a downer footnote, it's related with the fact that those combative and controversial works weren't
strong enough to cause commotion within that particular early 1970's French society. They made those films (like "State of Siege") and documentaries that were
mostly restricted to film audiences and art enthusiasts who had contact with several people exiled from South America countries, they shared information and all,
but it never got to a critical point where authorities of a well-developed nation heard about those problematic and violent situations of a suffering nation
and did anything about it, a talk of sanctions or even had major protests like countless ones they had against Vietnam War. Maybe that's an
idealization of mine, but those were different times and today many documentaries or news programs can cause major movements of society around the globe to
end injustices and political administrators find ways to "threat" countries whenever they're acting against human rights.
However, this one served a purpose back in the day; for the current times it's a great education document that reflects about the extremities dealt by
a great part of the population as they didn't had the government they wanted, protests were made but the alternative for some was to rebel through violence,
and Marighella and many others managed to disturb authorities with each action went by. 8/10.
