Nelson Pereira dos Santos – Como Era Gostoso o Meu Frances AKA How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman [+Extras] (1971)

THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPLOITATION OF BRAZIL
In 1594 in Brazil, the Tupinambás Indians are friends of the Frenches and their enemies are the Tupiniquins, friends of the Portugueses. A Frenchman (Arduíno Colassanti) is captured by the Tupinambás, and in spite of his trial to convince them that he is French, they believe he is Portuguese. The Frenchman becomes their slave, and maritally lives with Seboipepe (Ana Maria Magalhães). *Contains Spoilers* Later, he uses powder in the cannons that the Portuguese left behind to defeat the Tupiniquins in a battle. In order to celebrate the victory, the Indians decide to eat him.

Quote:
Anybody confronting a film with a title like “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” has a right to know what it is about. Well, it happens to be about eating a Frenchman—though that’s not all. And even that isn’t quite the simple gastronomic thrill the average moviegoer may have come to expect from his celluloid cannibalism.

In the coastal wilds of 16th-century Brazil, a French soldier (Arduino Colasanti) escapes his officers—only to be captured first by the Portuguese and then by a tribe of man-eating Indians. Mistaking him for one of their mortal enemies, the Portuguese, the Indians decide to kill him for his crimes and then to eat him for his powers. But first he is given a long period of relative privilege, enjoying a young Indian wife (Ana Maria Magalhaes) and counseling the tribal chief (Ital Natur). This period is the central concern of the film.

But it is not the only concern. “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” means to be a meditation on the past and perhaps the future of Brazil—ironic, often comic—and it mixes fictional drama with allusions to economic, social and religious history. In portraying its Indians, it exercises great care (there is an elaborate Indian village, which looks for all the world like a superb, animated textbook reconstruction), and if they sometimes suggest too much the noble savage, they at least represent an attempt at verisimilitude.

The verisimilitude, of course, is something of a joke. The Indians are middle-class white Brazilians (ordinary men and exceptionally beautiful young women) stripped down and reddened up for the occasion. “How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman” is the first absolutely non-exploitative (not nonerotic) movie I have seen to require almost total nudity from its cast, both sexes. Everyone is very convincing, but not always so convincing as to dissociate daily life in a 16th-century Indian village from just having an awfully good time.

But in the last analysis the film isn’t all that funny, and it doesn’t really mean to be. A very uneven work, its best passages are among its most serious—especially one sequence near the end, when the Indian wife describes for her captive husband the ritual that is to be his death. Half-dancing, sometimes smiling, sometimes almost crying, she re-creates on a barren place—a huge rock by the seashore—all the elements and emotions of a complex and fateful drama. It is a lovely performance, and, in its respect for space and movement, it seems very close to the spirit of classic cinema. (Roger Greenspun)

Como Era Gostoso o Meu Francês.1971.DVDRip.x264-mafalda.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 20 min
Size: 	1.57 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	720x480 ~> 720x540
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 610 kb/s
BPP: 	0.315
Audio
#1:  	Portuguese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/C498198D0841B8F/Como_Era_Gostoso_o_Meu_Frances.1971.DVDRip.x264-mafalda.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/C2A530101379834/Conversa_entre_Nelson,_Ana_Maria_Magalhaes,_Arduino_Colassanti_e_Luiz_Carlos_Lacerda.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/5F38120222C9371/How_Tasty_Was_My_Little_Frenchman_(1971)_Nelson_Pereira_dos_Santos.srt

Language(s):Portuguese, Tupi, French
Subtitles:English, Spanish, Portuguese