Red becomes black In modern cinema, classical communists are extremely and in every way avoided. This film is no exception, because the main character - Brazilian Carlos Mariguella (1911-1969) - was not a classical communist, but a left-wing radical who broke with the party and embarked on the path of terrorist struggle against the dictatorship established in Brazil in the 60s. The film focuses primarily on the practical activities of Marigella in the late 60s before his death - the very terror that turned this revolutionary into the enemy of the state number one. So in genre it's a political action movie, like that.
Terror against a terrorist state is an ambiguous thing: we can always call armed people opposing the system either rebels or rebels, and depending on the name we form a certain public opinion. This is well understood in the film by the antagonist Carlouche, a police officer Lucio, who believes that Mariguella should not be called a revolutionary in any way, but in extremely bad words, a terrorist, a pedophile, as long as public opinion remains on the side of the state. In fact, Mariguella’s methods, ‘urban guerrilla warfare’, were revolutionary at the time and different even from the activities of such progressives as Castro or Che Guevara, and therefore required some description. This description was given by Marigella himself in his “Brief textbook of the urban guerrilla”. This book was then studied by all - "forecasters", ETA, IRA, RAF, PLO and others. At that time, the philosopher Marcuse and other post-Marxist figures had already prepared a whole generation of “new leftists” who were making a mess of 1968 in Paris. And for the most determined of them, Marigella's book showed where and how to take the next step. That is, the Marigella practitioner, having not achieved the practical result of the fall of the regime at home, produced a theoretical revolution in the leftist movement after his death, introducing all his methods into the classics of street fighting. Unfortunately, the film pays little attention to the theoretical achievements of the main character - his book is mentioned only in passing.
Instead, a convex line of paternity is indicated: it is very dramatic to watch how the image of his father is formed and formed in the son of a street guerrilla. In conclusion, it should be noted that the actor is much darker than the mulatto of Mariguella. Apparently, this is a tribute to the time - black skin color with the filing of BLM should be considered the color of the current left radicals, for whom the descendant of African slaves on the line of Marigella's mother may well become one of the heroes. The political expediency of the color of the actor’s skin is also indicated by the sympathies of the director, who are entirely on the side of the main character, while the state is personified more and more by “white bastards” along with a couple of similar white villains from the United States. And the son of the main character is surrounded at school by bad white boys, too, clearly not by chance.
7 out of 10
Original