Nelson Pereira dos Santos - Vidas Secas aka Barren Lives (1963)

Filmed with a strong sense of compassion for the impoverished and an underlying hatred for the injustice which forces them into the lives they must live, this is one of the first works from Brazil's Cinema Novo. A poor Brazilian family struggles to earn a living when they take a job overseeing the livestock of a wealthy rancher. They move into an abandoned house, and their fortunes begin to take an upward turn. The father is duped into a card game with a crooked local policeman. The ranch hand protests, and a fight ensues that results in his beating by the cop. Despite being the victim of injustice, the man believes there should be some semblance of law and order and makes no protest about the incident. A severe drought has the man moving on from the ranch with his family to earn their living elsewhere.



Vidas Secas follows two years in the life of a family whose poverty and limitations are extreme, both in terms of their ability to express themselves and even in terms of their ability to survive. The family consists of Sinhá Vitória (Maria Ribeiro) and Fabiano (Átila Iório), two children (acted by the juveniles Gilvan and Genivaldo), and Baleia (whale), the dog. All they possess they carry on their backs, as they search for a little patch of land on which to settle. They come upon an abandoned farm, where Fabiano will work as a cow hand for just over a year. In this time, the family will experience some small advances and many humiliating set-backs, mainly due to Fabiano. Due to his ingenuousness and lack of understanding, Fabiano will be exploited by the owner of the farm, and forbidden by the "authorities" to sell his pathetic produce. Goaded by a soldier, Fabiano loses his money at gambling, and ends up in prison, where he is beaten. His only way out would be to join a band of outlaws, at the invitation of a cell mate. This he refuses to do: he is a good man, and wants only to live in peace with his family.

Surrender to social rules that are unfair or nonexistent is allied to impotence in the face of the ceaselessly blazing sun, drying up the land and the rivers, producing hunger and thirst, killing people and animals. To portray this desolate scenario, Nelson Pereira dos Santos sought to catch "the true light of the Northeast." Filming took place under the most natural conditions possible, with no filters, using, as the director explained, "God's light." The resulting over-exposure creates a suffocating atmosphere, which on several occasions seems to blind not only the protagonists but the viewer as well.
With authenticity and frugality as its touchstones, the camera— often hand held and subjective—reveals the daily existence of a family that can never be inserted into a "normal" social context, seen, most of the time, through the eyes of its members—including the dog. In its admirable austerity, Vidas Secas is a pungent treatise on aridity. The aridity is in the landscapes, in the hopelessness of the family's prospects, and in the relationships between the members of the family.



Vidas secas narra la historia de una familia –Fabiano, su mujer, la sinhá Vitória, y sus dos hijos– en el nordeste brasilero de los años cuarenta. Huyendo de la sequía, Fabiano llega a una pequeña propiedad rural donde es contratado como peón para cuidar del ganado y prestar pequeños servicios. Fabiano es engañado por el propietario de la tierra, quien no le paga lo que le debe. Un día – en ocasión de una breve visita al pueblo para asistir a una fiesta religiosa – Fabiano se ve mezclado en una pelea, encarcelado, azotado y humillado. La sequía vuelve y la familia se ve obligada a emigrar nuevamente. Esta vez en dirección a la ciudad. Con la esperanza de que allí no haya miseria y de que los hijos, un día, “dejen de ser animales”.



Вершиной мастерства Дос Сантоса и важной вехой в истории национального кино стала картина «Иссушенные жизни»/«Погубленные жизни» (Vidas secas, 1963) по роману писателя-реалиста Г. Рамоса. Подчеркнуто простая по стилю, жестокая в своей правдивости, лента раскрывала трагедию умиравших от голода крестьян северо-востока Бразилии…





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