In the Nineteenth Century, in Minas Gerais, the powerful farmer Luiz Roldão (Castro Vianna) promised to his moribund father that his son Jorge (Odilardo Costa) would marry Rosita, from the Bento's family, to unite their families through the wedding bonds. However, Jorge loves Lina (Iracema Aleixo), the goddaughter of Roldão that lives in the farm. Due to the impossibility of the love with Jorge, Lina decides to leave the farm with her old father, and live in a poor house, becoming very ill. Meanwhile, Roldão's daughter Lili (Naná Andrade) gets engaged of Dr. Carlos (Clementino Dotti), from the Bento's family. Jorge brings Lina back to the farm, and with the support of the local Father Belisário (Osiris Colombo), a great friend of Roldão, she is allowed to marry Jorge.
"A Canção da Primavera" was shot and produced in Minas Gerais and is the oldest Brazilian fictional complete movie in the present days. The few other existent movies are fragmented. The opening session was on 24 July 1923. However, most of the historians have not given much attention to "A Canção da Primavera", considered a "minor" average movie in the Brazilian cinematography.
The movie is very theatrical, with the actors and actresses forthcoming from the amateurish theater, and the story is extremely conservative, based on a poem of the Nineteenth Century. It is a very authentic film showing the life, moral standards and relation of power in the country of Minas Gerais in the old republic.
In the beginning of the movie, the actors and actresses are presented to the viewer, as a common practice of the theater of the Nineteenth Century and the movies of the decade of 10 of the last Century. It discloses the cinematographic delay and technical limitation of the Brazilian cinema in the beginning of the Twentieth Century. It is not a good movie, with actors and actresses looking at the camera, lost in some scenes, with an excessively theatrical representation of some of them, and very weak techniques, but excellent to understand Brazil of those times through the cinema. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "A Canção da Primavera" ("The Song of the Spring")