Joaquim Pedro de Andrade – Os Inconfidentes AKA The Conspirators (1972)

Quote:
After the huge critical and box-office acclaim of the allegoric, iconoclast political satire “Macunaíma” (1969), director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade raised funds in Brazil and Italy (through RAI-TV) to make “Os Inconfidentes”, a politically and artistically ambitious (though low budget) film that tries to reassess historically the most important political event in colonial Brazil – the ill-fated plotting of a coup d’état by a group of Brazilian military officers, poets and intellectuals aiming to overthrow the Portuguese Crown and establish a Brazilian Independent Republic in 1789, inspired by the success of the U.S. independence.

The conspiracy failed due to multiple factors, perhaps most importantly the lack of proper organization, funds and articulation with multiple segments of society. Once the coup plans were discovered, some of the conspirators (“inconfidentes”) were imprisoned and tortured, and one of them committed suicide in jail. Most of them were exiled, but one was sentenced to death: the young dentist and low-rank military officer Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, aka “Tiradentes”, was chosen as the scapegoat. In 1792, he was hanged, beheaded, his body torn apart by four horses (one for each arm and leg) pulling out in different directions, and his head publicly displayed as cautionary warning for future tentative conspirators. One century later, Tiradentes became Brazil’s highest martyr and hero, of course, when Independence was finally declared in 1889.

Andrade re-stages (with liberties) the actual events in some of the historical locations (the beautifully preserved villages of Ouro Preto and Mariana and their amazing 18th century architecture), aiming at a contemporary political meaning: in 1972 Brazil was living the darkest years of its violent military regime (1964-1985), with arbitrary imprisonment, torture and/or assassination of hundreds of political activists, not unlike what had happened in 1789. But Andrade wisely avoids naive revolutionary propaganda – “Os Inconfidentes” is rather an alert against hurried, hot-headed, improvisational actions by small activist groups who, though speaking in the name of the “oppressed majority”, are perhaps guided by class or political esprit de corps, or utopian, unrealistic ideals (Glauber Rocha had already called attention to these issues in his 1967 “Terra em Transe”). “Os Inconfidentes” is also about the role of artists and intellectuals in the political status quo of a nation, especially in the fight against the then widespread military regimes in Latin America.

Joaquim Pedro de Andrade - (1972) The Conspirators.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 19 min
Size: 	1.50 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	768x576 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 510 kb/s
BPP: 	0.237
Audio
#1:  	Portuguese 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/AE1AB6E8551D487/Joaquim_Pedro_de_Andrade_-_(1972)_The_Conspirators.mkv

Language(s):Portuguese
Subtitles:English