SELVA TRÁGICA
(TRAGIC JUNGLE)
dir. Roberto Farias, 1964
104 mins. Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12 – 10:00pm
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18 – 7:30pm – Special Event – Post screening conversation with film scholar Fabio Andrade + Isaac Hoff
SUNDAY, AUGUST 28 – 5:00pm – Special Event – Post screening conversation with Glênis Cardoso & Thotti Cardoso
“SELVA TRÁGICA was not an American imitation, it was a Brazilian social criticism film, a strong and sad film, more Brazil than the United States.” – Glauber Rocha
Spectacle Theater is excited to present our latest collaboration with Cinelimite, focusing on Roberto Farias’ (director of the early 60’s classic, ASSAULT ON THE PAY TRAIN) lyrical and gut-wrenching social melodrama, SELVA TRÁGICA.
Set between the border of Brazil and Paraguay, in a space that exists seemingly outside of reality, SELVA TRÁGICA tells the tragic story of the abuse and exploitation of captured slaves in a gloomy yerba mate plantation where the only way out of imposed oppression is cruel death and harrowing humiliation.
Farias spares no one in the vast hazy jungle which reverberates with lonely silences and an endless smell of mate. Rigorous in his depiction of cruelty as he is with his sense of framing, juxtaposition, and montage, SELVA TRÁGICA stands out for being a formalist work of beauty while the emptiness of the depicted void is as infinite as the hope for any kind of liberation.
Praised by Glauber Rocha upon release but still too often neglected for its historical significance, Spectacle Theater and Cinelimite are proud to screen SELVA TRÁGICA, a vital film from one of Brazil’s greatest auteurs.
Special thanks to Marise Farias & Produções Cinematográficas RF Farias LTDA
