THE THEME of immigration to Brazil released a creative opportunity to demonstrate the social constructivism possible via cinema in ‘TEMPOS de PAZ’ (‘Times of Peace’), the mini-festival’s brilliant fifth film made in 2009. This unforgettable film, both produced and directed by Daniel Filho, with an outstanding screenplay by Bosco Brasil, and a carefully relevant mixture of superb external colour and sepia toned internal architectural scenes grasps a somewhat neglected or forgotten quality of those fast-paced sharply structured Hollywood Westerns of a brisk 70 or 80 minutes, made by Budd Boeticher, Anthony Mann, Andre de Toth, Rudolphe Mate, and many others.
But ‘Tempos de Paz’ does not strike us as fast-paced at all at 80 minutes, because it is perfectly paced and carefully constructed by its writer, despite the tangents to its story. This quality brings to mind a few points the profound British art and film critic, Sir Herbert Read wrote in his indispensable essay, ‘Towards a Film Aesthetic’, which mentioned some vital creative qualities a good scenario/writer should possess:
“This artist will be a new type of artist – an artist with the visual sensibility of the painter, the vision of the poet, and the time-sense of the musician.”
‘Tempos de Paz’ utilises the theme of immigration to Brazil as a narrative bridge which leads to the film’s stunning climax where Art — the very format of theatrical drama we are looking at — becomes a self-sufficient topic, overtaking the typical opening narrative we are introduced to by a ship of European immigrants bound for Brazil in 1945, at the end of devastating World War II experiences of decimated families, trauma, and destitution.
Here, the ancient New World reputation as a place of redemption and rebuilding surfaces, since immigrants seek better renewed lives, and Brazil (like the USA, Canada, New Zealand, and perhaps other places) has long been seen as one of the most hedonistic and positive-oriented tropical countries to rebuild one’s life.
‘Tempos de Paz’ adds various ingredients to its story as it moves along, going off on mysterious tangents which provide narrative suspense, but without cheap ‘entertaining action’. This very ‘travelling’ to Brazil by ship story becomes stalled for the entire film by a weird world of official immigration procedures, which mirror the very time ticking away in the film’s duration, which suddenly becomes interesting when we realise that one of the lead stars, Dan Stulbach as Clausewitz, a post-war Polish refugee we first see behaving excitedly at the sight of Brazil from sea, is an ex-polish actor whose papers claim he is a farmer for protective reasons.
We are aware that something very significant is ahead, because there is no way an actor is going to act as an actor in a film unless his role is a crucial part of the plot. What makes ‘Tempos de Paz’ an amazing cinematic masterpiece is how this central role of an actor as an actor functions to reassert the power of creative film to socially reconstruct our lives.
The post-war 1945 era of the film coincides with the amnesty and release of political prisoners during the unsavory Getulio Vargas regime in Brazil, when torture was an official habit. In charge of the waterfront immigration offices is Segismundo, brilliantly played by Tony Ramos, an ex-official of the regime’s political police on the lookout for Nazis among the immigrants escaping to anonymity to Brazil.
It is here that Stulbach, as the Polish actor, Clausewitz, runs into trouble with this official who represents the complete opposite of what the eager idealistic new immigrant thinks of Brazil. Segismundo is a central character, perfectly drawn and acted by Ramos in a superlative performance. His role is significant because it exposes character traits which exist beyond Brazil, in people put in important public positions, but who are ignorant of the intellectual and civilized cultural achievements of their country.
Segismundo is paranoid because of his guilty conscience as a torturer. He is a petty official obsessed with authority more than with logic and knowledge. His misinterpretations of Clausewitz multiply, beginning with the similarity of the name ‘Clausewitz’ with a certain notorious Nazi concentration camp which he knows was associated with the same sort of torture he was party to.
Clausewitz, on the other hand, overwhelmed to be in Brazil, whose culture he has already studied in Europe, quotes and recites famous 20th Century Brazilian poets and literature in his bid to convince the official of his love for Brazil, his good intentions, and to save himself deportation by the very ship that brought him. But all his erudition and knowledge mean nothing to the confused and paranoid official who is completely ignorant of such intellectual and civilized modern Brazilian culture.
This situation is comparable to, for example, any idealistic immigrant to the USA whose knowledge of the values of great Americans like Walt Whitman, Thoreau, Alex de Toqueville, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King are unknown to a suspicious immigration officer.
‘Tempos de Paz’ jumps higher as Segismundo sees the chance to unburden his guilty conscience to the talkative Clausewitz by relating horrid things he has done as a political lackey. Clausewitz eases his conscience by revealing horrid things he has sided with as well.
At one point, the film shockingly proves the power of language over film’s typical visual methods when Segismundo, sweating with guilt, sadistically recounts how he once tortured a prisoner by inserting a wire down the tip of his penis and applied a blow torch’s flame to its exposed end. The sound of his words affect us more emotionally than a visual scene would.
Satisfied that Clausewitz shares some of his guilt, the official stamps his documents and admits him to Brazil. It is at this point that Clausewitz, the actor, reveals with laughter that he was just acting; that all his stories of similar horrid activities in Europe were lies.
‘Tempos de Paz’ is a masterpiece of avant-garde Brazilian filmmaking from start to finish in a brisk 80 minutes; its scene-structures and internal colour of the highest artistry, reminiscent of Portugal’s great abstract lady painter, Viera da Silva. Its precisely orchestrated ending is a welcome continuation of earlier film classics like ‘WOMAN IN THE WINDOW’ (1945); ‘GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT’ (1947); ‘BRANDED’ (1950); ‘THE APARTMENT’ (1962); ‘THE VISIT’ (1964); etc.
It deserved the ovation it received at its Georgetown screening.