NP R.I.P magical-realist pioneer Jorge Amado

[JBFRAME at aol.com]

I remember him best for Tent of Miracles, a wonderful affirmation of Bahia, 
Candomble, & a pean to miscegenation as the salvation of humanity!

A wonderfully erotic film was made based on the novel by Brazilian director 
Nelson Perreira dos Santos. 
 
TENT OF MIRACLES
(Tenda dos milagres) 
Brazil 1977. Director: Nelson Pereira dos Santos
Cast: Hugo Carvana, Sonia Dias, Anecy Rocha, Wilson Jorge Mello Based on the 
novel by Brazilian great Jorge Amado, Nelson Pereira dos Santos' playful, 
provocative, highly-entertaining Tent of Miracles is a colourful, 
carnivalesque celebration of Afro-Brazilian culture -- and also a caustic 
critique of Brazil's "myth" of racial democracy. Structured as a sexy, 
Citizen Kane-like investigation into a man's life, and set in Bahia, the 
centre of African culture in Brazil, the film has a visiting American Nobel 
laureate baffling the locals by unexpectedly declaring a long dead, totally 
obscure Bahian mulatto janitor as one of the great scientists of the 20th 
century. The perplexed press is sent scrambling to discover who this 
mysterious local hero was; the result is Tent of Miracles' snappy 
film-within-the-film, which pieces together the forgotten story of a 
self-taught amateur anthropologist whose unusual theories of race mixing once 
earned him the enmity of Bahia's white elite. "One of a rare breed -- a 
brilliant political film that succeeds in raising the consciousness of its 
audience and yet is thoroughly enjoyable to watch" (Marsha Kinder, Film 
Quarterly). "At once festive and critical, celebratory and ironic, cerebral 
and sensuous, a singularly lively cinematic pageant. . . The result is a kind 
of raucous, unkempt masterwork, an animated fresco as variegated as Bahia 
itself" (Robert Stam, Film Comment). Colour, 35mm, in Portuguese with English 
subtitles. 132 mins.
    
Check it out.
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