Review #1,400: 'This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse' (1967)

The idea of going bigger and bolder when tackling the sequel to a surprise hit is nothing new, as evidenced by Jose Mojica Marins' follow-up to cult Brazilian horror classic At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. The first film managed to achieve cult status in its native country and with anybody lucky enough to see it elsewhere in the world, so director, co-writer and lead star Marins managed to bag a noticeably larger budget and used this to further explore the darkest regions of his mind. The result - the wonderfully-titled This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse - is little more than a shameless re-hash of the previous story, but as a piece of psychedelic gothic horror, it manages to outshine its predecessor in every way. At the end of Midnight, Marins' Ze do Caixao, or 'Coffin Joe', was left for dead by supernatural forces. But now he's back, and more determined than ever to find the perfect bride to carry his child.

While the villagers hid in fear of Joe last time around, they have since grown weary of his superior attitude and suspect him of the many disappearances that took place in their community. However, without sufficient evidence to bring him to trial, Joe is released to carry on with his undertaker duties and his search for the mother of his future son. Assisted this time by a hunchback named Bruno (Jose Lobo), Joe imprisons some of the village's most beautiful young ladies and tests them in order to prove their worthiness. Sadly, the test involves an army of spiders, and while one woman, Marcia (Nadia Freitas), remains calm, the others panic and are thrown into a pit to be killed by snakes. While Marcia is deemed unsuitable to bear his child, she is employed as a spy while Joe sets out to seduce the beautiful Laura (Tina Wohlers), the daughter of a local colonel who shares Joe's twisted outlook and logic.

Marins only stepped into the role of Coffin Joe when the original actor dropped out before the first film started production, but this proved to be a stroke of luck as it's difficult to imagine anybody else donning the top hat, neatly-trimmed beard and grotesque, talon-like fingernails. Joe is more cunning this time around, using his wits to frame a local strongman for the murders and to escape some violent confrontations. A curse placed upon him by one of his victims slowly drives him mad, leading to one of the film's most exceptional set-pieces. In his dreams, Joe journeys into hell, a cesspit of cruelty and torture shot in bold colour (the rest of the picture is grainy black-and-white). Bloody limbs and body parts emerge from the stone walls and poor souls are whipped and beaten continuously is a never-ending carousel of savagery. It's a nightmare that even terrifies Joe, and this segment provides a disturbing window into Marins' imagination. This second entry into the Coffin Joe series moves a mile-a-minute, offering everything from phoney-looking backdrops to smoke-machine special effects as it touches on almost every taboo imaginable, but this excess is all part of its charm, and what makes the world of Ze do Caixao so unique.


Directed by: José Mojica Marins
Starring: José Mojica Marins, Tina Wohlers, Nadia Freitas, Antonio Fracari, Jose Lobo
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #988: 'Entranced Earth' (1967)

Following his fascinating portrayal of outlaw Antonio das Mortes and the dying days of banditry, Black God, White Devil (1964), Brazilian director Glauber Rocha - only 28 at the time - made the dazzling, deliberately contradictory and admittedly plodding Entranced Earth, a kaleidoscopic satire of politics in Latin America and the mad dictators who seemed to delight their people only to oppress them once elected. Filmed with the free-styling vigour of the French New Wave, Entranced Earth is often exhausting but consistently breathtaking.

Told through the eyes of poet and journalist Paulo Martins (Jardel Filho), we first encounter him pleading angrily with governor Felipe Vieira (Jose Lewgoy) to fight back in the midst of a social uprising against his administration. We flash back to learn that they were once friends, with Paulo offering his support during the election process, only to see the the promises Vieira campaigned on go out the window as the people go hungry. Vieira's political opponent, conservative Porfirio Diaz (Paulo Autran), was also once Paulo's friend, and has spent his life in luxury away from public view until a chance to rule turns him into a raving, yet highly charismatic, lunatic.

Entranced Earth is quite a confusing film. It strides along shifting back-and-forth in time and between various characters, and the kinetic, in-your-face camerawork makes it difficult at times to decipher just what the hell is going on. As a time capsule and a piece of experimental film-making, it is fascinating and deserves to have each of its frames pulled apart and analysed. It's a leftist view that is without any overt political statements, and instead seems to set out to capture the political counter-culture of the 1960's (or the demise of it). By setting it in the fictional country of Eldorado, Glauber avoids commenting on any country in particular, but is clearly making a statement about Latin America. It may leave you confused and worn-out by the end, but it's political cinema with both an edge and a sense of humour, and takes its technical influences from the greats of world cinema.


Directed by: Glauber Rocha
Starring: Jardel Filho, Paulo Autran, José Lewgoy, Glauce Rocha
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #679: 'Bus 174' (2002)

On June 12th, 2000, a young man named Sandro Rosa do Nascimento hijacked a bus in Rio de Janeiro with the intention of robbing the passengers inside. When one of the passengers notified a police car, the bus was intercepted and Sandro took all the passengers hostage, armed with a .38 caliber revolver. Soon enough, the bus - Omnibus 174 - was a media frenzy, with everything being broadcast live to the watching public. What ensued was not only a sign of the ineptitude of the Rio police force, but an insight into one of the most serious societal problems in Brazil - the invisible homeless.

Sandro's story began years before the events of Jose Padilha and Felipe Lacerda's documentary Bus 1974. Through friends and witnesses, we learn about Sandro's childhood as he witnessed several horrific acts, such as the murder of his mother in front of his very eyes, and the events of the Candelaria massacre which saw the murder of eight homeless children by men thought to be police officers. But we also learn how the homeless in Rio de Janeiro are simply ignored by citizens. This abandonment by your own society can cause serious psychological defects, that lead the homeless to feel they have no place in the world.

We get a real insight into how Rio de Janeiro treats their lowest of citizens (the prisoners) in a stand-out scene which I never wish to see again. Turning the image into negative to somehow try and shield us from the true horror, the camera pans alongside a tiny prison cell that holds between 40-50 prisoners. They each have their own unique story, which they rant to camera. They are forced to take turns to stand up and lie down, to piss and shit where they eat, causing disease to spread like wildfire, and all in 100 degree heat. This is not a place interested in rehabilitation.

This is documentary film-making at it's most thrilling and disheartening. The hostage situation plays out like a check-list of police malpractice and ill-preparation. At one point, Sandro shoots at the ground, feigning the execution of a hostage, and then hangs his head out of the window to tell the police what he has done. Many times this happens, still the police do not take him out. The same year saw the release of City of God, a super-stylised account of Brazil's ghettos, so it appears that Brazil was turning an big eye on itself and its societal problems. At 150 minutes, this is a long and detailed documentary that tends to repeat itself every so often or draw out an event in the hostage crisis, but Bus 174 will no doubt leave you moved and, more importantly, angry.


Directed by: José Padilha, Felipe Lacerda
Starring: Sandro Do Nascimento
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #633: 'Black God, White Devil' (1964)

At just 25, Brazilian director Glauber Rocha directed Black God, White Devil, now considered one of the most important pictures to ever come out of Brazil, and a key entry into the Cinema Novo movement. Combining elements of Sergio Leone, Italian neo-realism, and Soviet propaganda such as the work of Sergei Eisenstein, Rocha created a brutal, grainy world inhabited by suicidal religious fanatics, wandering hit men, and psychopathic bandits. From the opening shots of rotting animal corpses and the endless Brazilian sertão, Rocha portrays a grim social realism, one of the key aspects of Cinema Novo.

Ranch-hand Manuel (Geraldo Del Rey) lives in poverty with his wife Rosa (Yona Magalhaes). Fed up with his situation, he goes into town to sell his stock, only to have his boss try to cheat him out of his money, so Manuel kills him with a machete. Fleeing the authorities, he falls in with maniacal preacher Sebastiao (Lidio Silva), who leads Manuel, Rosa and his other followers on a killing spree. Circumstances lead to Manuel leaving the cause, and joining up with famous bandit Corisco (Othon Bastos), who also leads the couple on an orgy of meaningless violence and thievery. But shadowy gun-for-hire Antonio das Mortes (Mauricio do Valle), having been paid by the church and a poltician, is hot on Corisco's tail.

The film very much reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's astounding novel Blood Meridian, where the sheer brutality of the violence played as a metaphor for a society gone sour and a world intent of self-destruction. Like Blood Meridian's The Kid, Manuel and Rosa follow blindly to whichever cause they see a glimmer of hope in. They fail to see the lunacy of Sebastiao's behaviour, and it's only at the point where he stabs a baby in the heart that their eyes seem to be opened, only for them to shack up with the gibbering Corisco, a man who speaks like a poet but doesn't seem to be able to comprehend his own existence. It is at this point, about two-thirds in, that the film seems to lose momentum and becomes somewhat of an unfathomable mess.

But it isn't just the social-political ponderings that make Black God, White Devil so memorable, it also has style in abundance. The camerawork is shaky and urgent at times, full of character close-ups from awkward angles, but it also uses fast editing reminiscent of Eisenstein's greatest works. Similar to Battleship Potemkin's (1925) Odessa steps sequence, the Monte Santo chapel massacre at the hands of Antonio das Mortes is simply electrifying. It is das Mortes' presence that leads to the moments that evoke the work of Sergio Leone, wrapping the shady anti-hero in moody atmosphere like Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name. It's a dangerous mixture of conflicting styles that works beautifully, making the film beautiful and cool, occasionally horrifying, and undoubtedly important. It's just a shame it doesn't manage to keep up with the absolutely astonishing opening two-thirds.


Directed by: Glauber Rocha
Starring: Geraldo Del Rey, Yoná Magalhães, Othon Bastos, Maurício Do Valle
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #520: 'At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul' (1964)

Now known as the beginning of the 'Coffin Joe Trilogy', Jose Mojica Marins' supernatural horror has garnered a loyal cult following through it's camp sets, it's grainy, low-budget photography, and the wildly sadistic acts of violence by it's anti-hero, Ze do Caixao (or Coffin Joe - to translate - played by Marins). Dressed all in black, with a long cape, top hat and full beard, Coffin Joe has become an iconic figure amongst die-hard horror fans, and his (outlandish) presence is undeniable. Joe is an undertaker, and rejects all ideas of Christianity or faith (he literally laughs in the face of it), so his dark demeanour is the embodiment of evil, and ultimately, Satan.

At Midnight... kick-starts Joe ultimate quest to find a suitable wife who will bore him a son, therefore cementing his precious blood-line for years to come. His current wife Lenita (Valeria Vasquez) loves him, though she cannot give him a son. Infatuated by Terezinha (Magda Mei), the fiancée of his best friend Antonio (Nivaldo Lima), he tries to seduce her, but she rejects his advances, leaving Joe infuriated. Convinced that Lenita is the thing standing between him and Terezinha, he ties Lenita to the bed and lets her get bitten by a venomous spider. But Joe learns that the things he wants in life must be taken rather than earned, and he begins a killing spree in the face of a prophecy that deems him to die on the night of the Day of the Dead.

Beginning with huge lashings of style, Marins introduces his actors in the opening credits by showing them dying later in the film. It's an interesting approach, and almost as if Marins wishes us to view the characters as the walking dead, as we already know their fate. There are freeze-frames, trippy texts, and an almost industrial soundtrack layered with shrills and screams. It's all very theatrical, akin to a pantomime at times, with the clichéd gypsy fortune teller talking directly to camera and warning the audience that they should not watch the movie. But it was this old-fashioned approach, and the almost ineptness of its execution, that made this such an enjoyable experience.

We have fake cobwebs, spiders, and a gypsy witch with a shrieking laugh combined with moments of utter surreality, and a surprisingly gruesome streak given its age (Joe removes a doctor's eyeballs, mashes the fingers of a rival poker player with a broken bottle, and flogs a man half to death). It's no surprise Marins is a national treasure in his native Brazil, as he single-handedly brought the horror genre to his country after starting his career with westerns and dramas. The final instalment to the trilogy was just made in 2008, so its quite impressive given that his character is memorable enough to stretch over four decades. Next up will be the deliciously-titled This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1967).


Directed by: José Mojica Marins
Starring: José Mojica Marins, Magda Mei, Nivaldo Lima, Valéria Vasquez
Country: Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #413: 'Black Orpheus' (1959)

Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn) arrives in Rio de Janeiro in time for the festival to escape a man whom she believes is trying to kill her. She catches a tram driven by popular playboy Orfeu (Breno Mello), who naturally falls for Eurydice's youthful beauty. Ofeu is engaged to Mira (Lourdes De Oliveira) but is particularly unenthusiastic about the idea, and uses his new pay packet to get his guitar from the pawn shop in time for the carnival rather than to buy Mira an engagement ring. Discovering that Eurydice is staying next door to him with her cousin Serafina (Lea Garcia), Orfeu falls in love with her. But during the carnival, the man Eurydice believes is trying to kill her tracks her down, revealing that he is in fact Death dressed in a skeleton costume and has come to claim her.

Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Academy Award and Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language Feature, Black Orpheus is a rather strange beast, and the surprise victor in a year that saw Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour released. Although it can be argued that these are technically better films, it's not hard to see why Black Orpheus won, as its sheer individualism in its beauty, colour and culture makes it stand out above the rest. Many directors, including Orson Welles, had tried to capture the wonder of Rio's carnival, but French director Marcel Camus somehow manages to place you there amongst the samba and the sun, yet never letting the visuals overshadow this poetic, and actually very funny, re-telling of the Orpheus myth.

Perhaps the most popular telling of this story in film is Jean Cocteau's Orphee (1950), the central film to his Orpheus trilogy. Cocteau invested his own ideas of surrealism, poetry and art into his film, and was more re-interpretation than re-telling, and as magnificent as that film is, it does tend to ignore the thing that Orpheus was known for, which is his almost God-like gift for music. Transporting the story to Rio's carnival, an explosion of tribal samba amongst an array of outlandish costumes, writhing bodies, and beautiful women, brings the story to life, and rather than Gods, we have voodoo doctors and fancy dress. It seems strange that Marcel Camus has done nothing of any real note since this film's success, as he somehow manages to juggle neo-realism and fantasy to a stunning degree, and created one of the most memorable films of the 1950's.


Directed by: Marcel Camus
Starring: Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes De Oliviera, Léa Garcia
Country: Brazil/France/Italy

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #270: 'Birdwatchers' (2008)

Set amongst the Guarani-Kaiowa community in their native Brazil, Birdwatchers depicts the breakdown between the white settlers and the ever-decreasing tribe. Tired of living in a designated settlement, stoic community leader Nadio (Ambrosio Vilhava) decides to take back the land that their ancestors are buried on. Only the land has been taken over by white farmers who are making a wealthy living from the land. Tensions increase further when the young Osvaldo (Pedro Abrisio Da Silva), who is learning to cut out indulging in things like red meat and women to become a shamen, begins a friendship with the farmers daughter.

Over the past number of years, hundreds of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe have committed suicide. Their religion is based around a God they call Nande Ru, and they worship the land they live on and so respect. Like many indigenous tribes, they have seen their land raped and poached, and have been driven off to seek underpaid labour. The film depicts the suicides early on, as Nadio finds two women hanging from nearby trees. He is not shocked, as he has seen this happened many times before. The film gets its real power from the fact that this is reality, and shocked me at my ignorance and the failure of any real coverage of this decreasing community.

The film is also funny, beautiful and moving. Most hilarious is the scene in which Mami (Eliane Juca Da Silva) seduces one of the farmers in order to get hold of his gun. He is seen as a bit of an idiot throughout the film, and Mami and the other tribeswomen mockingly dub him as 'long dick'. As he has sex with Mami, she is laughing shouting 'long dick!' at him. It's a strangely funny scene. The actors are probably so effective due to the fact that these are actual members of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe, and had to be introduced to the concept of cinema before receiving their brief acting lessons. I suspect they didn't need acting lessons, and their emotions and history are written all over their faces.

The film wisely doesn't show everything so simply and one-sided. It is a complex issue that deserves a complex depiction. The farmer Moreira (Leonardo Medeiros), dismayed at the tribe settling on the land where he grows his crops, explains how this is the farm he inherited from generations before him. The land belongs to him as much as it does to the tribe. This is the only land he knows, and what a beautiful land it is. The Brazilian landscape is filmed with a natural beauty, which allows us to understand why the Guarani-Kaiowa worship the land so. A powerful film, and when director Marco Bechis flashes up the charity dedicated to preserving the tribe at the end of the film, it will fill you with guilt that you can live in a world that would fail to recognise their struggle and plight.


Directed by: Marco Bechis
Starring: Pedro Abrísio Da Silva, Ambrósio Vilhava, Eliane Juca Da Silva, Leonardo Medeiros
Country: Italy/Brazil

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie