Bye Bye Brazil Directed by Carlos Diegues

Bye Bye Brazil

Directed by Carlos Diegues

This film, very much like "Time of Revenge" had to be cloaked to full the censorship of the time. Also like "Time of Revenge" this film is hard to classify, it camouflages as comedy-satire, but it is really Cine Novo as its best, with an implied protest for the inequality of social treatment of regional zones of Brazil, and the neglecting of the environment.

A group of seasonal, gypsy-like performers travels from the arid Northeast of Brazil, though the coast, to the Amazonian forest, providing a semi-documentary view of the country and its ethic diversification along the road.

At the beginning of the film, in the first town where the troupe performs, they allured the first symptom of denationalization: they want to see snow, like civilized countries have. The illusionist, "Lord Cigano" provides then with coconut powder as an example of it. This implied allusion starts to convey subtlety Digues' main idea: Brazil identity is changing influenced by the means of mass entertainment.

The troupe is formed by Lord Cigano (magician, illusionist, and swindler), Salome (pseudo actress and prostitute when the need arises), Swallow (strong man, utility crew and arm wrestler on the side) they pick up two new crew members in its first stop, a young accordionist and his very pregnant wife, Dasdo.

Digues uses the traveling log of the troupe to show how Brazil is changing.

The troupe of performers encounters a tribe of displaced Indians that are living (or forced to leave) their natural habitat to go to the big city. The tribe travels for a while with gypsies to allow the audience to see why they were leaving the territory. They are enticed by the commodities of the modern world: transistor radios, carbonated drinks (Coca Cola), electricity, ice cream, television, and airplanes. At the same time, modernization is bad for the traveling performers. They find audiences less interested in their performance and more interested on modern amusements: television, disco music and films.

The journey is a sad one as it in part traces the ecological damage being done to Brazil by rapid industrialization and the damage done to the small backwoods towns and to the native Brazilians -- the "Indians."