Visually spellbinding but also meandering and overlong, filmmaker Daniela Thomas’s period piece is set in the titular area, a remote region of southeastern Brazil, in 1821, shortly after the country won independence from Portugal. Antonio (Adriano Carvalho) runs a faltering diamond mine acquired by marriage. His gloom intensifies when his wife dies in childbirth (along with their newborn son), leaving him living with his senile mother-in-law, his housekeeper and steward, and his compliant slaves, one of whom serves as his occasional companion in bed. Antonio decides to marry Beatriz (Luana Nastas), the young daughter of his brother-in-law Bartholomeu (Roberto Audio), but after the wedding she takes up secretly with slave Feliciana’s (Jai Baptista) son Virgilio (Vinicius Dos Anjos). This narrative thread plays rather like a Greek tragedy transposed to the New World, but Thomas adds other strands to the tapestry: one involves a freedman named Jeremias (Fabricio Boliveira), who Antonio hires to turn his land into a farm while training his slaves in agricultural work; another centers on Lider (Toumani Kouyaté), a surly rebel among a group of recently-arrived African slaves, who attempts an escape; and a third deals with Bartholomeu fending off his wife’s demands that he stand up to Antonio and take some of the family property back. Thomas’s attempt to juggle all of these elements results in a frustrating lack of focus in this slowly-paced film. But she does create a compelling sense of time and place as well as a brooding atmosphere, delivered in stunning black-and-white cinematography. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)
Vazante
Music Box, 117 min., in Portuguese w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $29.99, Blu-ray: $34.99 Volume 33, Issue 5
Vazante
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