Sunday 29 January 2023

Ganga Bruta (1933 Humberto Mauro & scr)

An odd, interesting film, my first, I think, from Brazil. A part talkie, with some subtitles on the silent dialogue, but sometimes none. A man who has killed his wife for being unfaithful takes an engineering job on some massive (and staggering) construction project and falls for the wife of his co-worker, with tragic results. Has some stand-out moments - a barroom brawl, a scene of mad drunkenness, a flashback to a haunting folk song, the climactic battle.

An interesting score and some rather clunky sound effects. My 4x3 copy loses the very top of the image suggesting it was made in an even narrower format.

Durval Bellini, Dea Selva, Lu Marival, Decio Murilo. Photographed by Edgar Brasil, the brilliantly-named Afrodisio de Castro, and Paolo Morano.





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