MEU NOME É TONHO
Dir. Ozualdo Candeias, 1969
Brazil. 90 min
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 – 7:30 PM
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 – 7:30 PM – Special Event – Remote Q&A with Sao Paolo Critic, Filipe Furtado – $10
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE of HD RESTORATION
Spectacle Theater and Cinelimite are proud to present Ozualdo Candeias second feature, the essential Cinema Marginal film, MEU NOME É TONHO.
Completed just two years after Candeias’ debut cornerstone, A MARGEM, MEU NOME É TONHO is Candeias’ first exploration into the Brazilian western. Photographed by master cinematographer, Peter Overbeck (THE RED LIGHT BANDIT) and scored by the virtuosic Brazilian composer, Paulinho Nogueira, Candeias follow-up feature is a raw and poetic western which compares to almost nothing in the western canon (a la the Italian Spaghetti westerns of Leone or Corbucci or any of the films of John Ford, Hawks, etc).
Filled with an unsettling sense of macabre humor, unremitting violence, and a demonic collective laughter that is louder and perhaps even more perverse than the sounds of the colt revolvers from the antagonistic Manelão gang, MEU NOME É TONHO unravels as a sardonic descent into Candeias’ madness which includes an anarchic sense of pacing and some of the most remarkable and bewildering moments of montage and hand-held cinematography in the history of cinema.
The story of Tonho’s revenge on the Manelão gang while straightforward in nature is told through sparse dialog, symbolic imagery, and Candeias’ unique sense of pace which is felt and controlled by the ambient sounds of the terrain juxtaposed by the echoing laughter of the depraved, land-grabbing gang. MEU NOME É TONHO is not just essential Brazilian cinema but is also some of the most inventive filmmaking that came out of the 1960’s.
Special thanks to Eugenio Puppo and Heço Produções.
