The Cleansing of Bonfim from Bahia to New York
It wasn’t until the 2002 surprise hit film City of God that the Afro-Brazilian experience finally gained mainstream attention on the big screen.
Prior to that, the precious few cinematic and televisual representations of Brazil in the West were largely light and tawny-hued, depicting an image of the country that seemed to belie the full extent of its racial composition.
Despite Brazil having the second-largest Black population in the world, watching some of these films, one could be forgiven for thinking that people of African descent simply didn’t exist in the country. The world seemed oblivious to the voices of Afro-Brazilians and their fascinating and varied experiences.
That all changed with City of God, which brought the stories of Brazil’s Black poor onto center stage and into the collective popular consciousness. The film’s unflinching portrayal of urban decay in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas and the struggle to stay on the right side of the law despite the ubiquity of drugs, gangs and violence, evidently resonated with theater-goers. The film grossed over $7m in the US and $23m worldwide, making the top ten lists of the New York Times and Hollywood Reporter, and garnering four Academy Award nominations in 2004.
If City of God introduced Afro-Brazilian cinema into the mainstream, then João Daniel Tikhomiroff’s new Capoeira film Besouro may well cement its place there. The film, which is being hailed as one of the most expensive made in Brazil to date, is attracting all manner of word-of-mouth buzz among critics and film lovers. Although a date for international release has yet to be announced, Besouro earned a nomination to contend for the right to represent Brazil for the 2010 Best Foreign Film Oscar.
Unlike its predecessor City of God, which primarily focused on the violent criminal underworld in Brazil’s slums, Besouro pays homage to the cultural traditions Afro-Brazilians inherited from their slave ancestors and weaves ancient African myths into its narrative for surrealist effect. The protagonist Besouro or Beetle, is based on a semi-mythical Afro-Brazilian folk hero of the same name, who according to oral legend, had supernatural powers which enabled him to fly, dodge bullets and morph into animal form at will.
He was an anti-Establishment figure who fought against the racism and tyranny of Brazil’s plantation owners and championed the cause of his fellow oppressed Black countrymen. He was also a master of Capoeira – a martial art developed by Brazilian slaves as a means of self-defense, but masked as a dance so slave owners wouldn’t suspect their charges of plotting insurrection.
The film also incorporates elements of Candomblé, a syncretic religion brought by Nigerian Yoruba slaves into the New World and blended with Catholicism, so slaves could worship their own traditional gods openly while their masters believed they were reverencing Catholic saints.
What makes Besouro significant is that it represents the junction where world cinema meets high-octane Hollywood blockbuster and gives Afro-Brazilian culture the much-needed exposure it deserves. Besouro bears the hallmarks of alternative film, yet has mainstream appeal, with its use of gravity-defying ‘Wire Fu’ stunts popularized by Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The film’s sweeping camera shots are polished and its fast-paced action sequences well-executed.
With Kill Bill’s Huan-Chiu Ku on board as action director and a score by Grammy-winning music legend Gilberto Gil, Besouro seems to have all the necessary credentials for box office success.
The film’s domestic release in Brazil last month conveniently coincides with the I Cine Fest Brasil, which took place in New York earlier this year and is now making its way across Europe. Among the films showcased in the festival is The Cleansing of Bonfim from Bahia to New York, which explores Afro-Brazilian cultural rites originating in the north-eastern state of Salvador and now practiced on Manhattan’s 46th Street as part of the annual Brazilian Day celebrations.
With Afro-Brazilian cinema now beginning to gain an increasingly higher profile, both mainstream audiences and industry figures may soon have little choice but to sit up and take notice.
Aaron T Akinyemi is a journalist specializing in global cultural and social issues. His work has appeared in the International PEN Festival of World Literature, The Guardian and the BBC World Service
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