A rarity from the early cinema of Brazil that survived, the short documentary covers the funeral of one of the greatest figures of Brazilian's history,
the Baron of Rio Branco, a famous statesman who shaped the country to what it is today with his final negotiations with some of the neighbor countries to establish
lines and frontiers (the Acre division/foundation is one of those, in the early 1900's). The Baron's importance cannot be measure by today's standards - he worked
under four different presidential terms and at one time he was considered to be a possible runner for the position, of which he never wanted. The public admiration
for the man was so big that when news of his death was known the festivities for the 1912 Carnival were cancelled, the nation was in mourning. That simply doesn't
happen.
The images presented here are the crowd gathering near his funeral, with the arrival of many authorities including then president Hermes da Fonseca; one gets
easily awe with such a crowd as if the whole Brazil was there. And there's also a brief glimpse of his corpse inside the coffin as passers by watch him to pay their
final respects. Basically it's a news coverage of the event and I've find it by accident. There's a dialogue in Leon Hirszman's film "A Falecida" where the main character
asks to someone who had the most beautiful funeral of all in Brazilian society and the answer she gets is that the baron's funeral was the number one. That was a 1965 movie,
and more than 50 years people were still talking about that event, and they're spot on. The one from president Vargas (1954) might have been the one were people were more emotional, as evidenced by countless newsreels and documentaries but the one covered in this short film presents something unprecedent, hard to imagine in the early 1900'.
A good testament of its period, "Baron of Rio Branco: Nation in Mourning: The Funerals" (it got released with those three titles) is a time travel to observe costumes, history
unfolding before your eyes and for those who know little of the historical deceased is a poignant way to see how admired the man was, one of Brazil's last heroes. 8/10
