QUILOMBO Movie Review

The title refers to a legendary settlement of runaway slaves in 17th-century Brazil; this epic chronicles its fortunes as leadership passes from a wise and beloved ruler named Ganga Zumba (the subject of an earlier film by director Carlos Diegues) to a more sternly militant one named Zumbi, who fears that Ganga Zumba's old ways smack of appeasement and who insists on mounting a full-scale war against the oppressive government. Carlos Diegues's groundbreaking Quilombo tells this richly complex saga to the accompaniment of a powerfully evocative musical score by Gilberto Gil; it's one of the few fact-based historical spectaculars from which you emerge humming the tunes. Revolutionary in form, Quilombo is nevertheless a colorful, compelling, and ultimately heartbreaking work. Though self-contained, Quilombo is one of a series of films by Diegues chronicling different aspects of the Brazilian people's centuries-old struggles to free themselves from the curses of colonialism and slavery.

NEXT STOP … Ganga Zumba, Xica, Bye Bye Brazil

1984 114m/C BR Vera Fischer, Antonio Pompeo, Zeze Motta, Toni Tornado; D: Carlos Diegues; W: Carlos Diegues. VHS NYF, FCT