Barro Humano

"Barro Humano" was a project in the middle of the 20's of the Brazilian magazine Cinearte. Adhemar Gonzaga intended to call the attention of the audiences to the incipient Brazilian Cinema. The plot was written in 1926, by Paulo Benedetti. Although not being unanimity of reviews by the critics, this movie was the greatest ticket sale of 1929 in Brazil.

The story is about four women. The two lead characters, Vera (Gracia Morena) and Gilda (Lelita Rosa), are middle class women, poor but ambitious and with objective of life. They will face the bourgeois characters, Helena (Eva Schnoor) and Diva (Eva Nil), which do not have any perspective or objective in life.

There were five copies of this movie in Brazil and an extended one in Argentina, all of them destroyed or missing. The last Brazilian copy belonged to Pedro Lima, who lost all his collection of films in a fire provoked by the silver nitrate of the negatives.

Today I have watched the only two fragments with about 5 seconds running time that still exist and have been recovered by Rio de Janeiro City Hall from Pedro Lima's collection. These rarities were exhibited for the first time and with the presence of Ms. Lia Renée, the six years old actress in the movie, and Marcos Campello, who directed a documentary about this movie and also presented in Cine Odeon today. The footages are the kiss, with Carlos Modesto and Eva Schonoor; and the ball, which had the intention to show the resemblance of Carlos Modesto with Rodolfo Valentino. In this scene, he dances tango with Carmem Violeta in the saloon of Cinema Iris. I am not able to vote in the movie that will never be seen for the previously mentioned reasons.

Title (Brazil): "Barro Humano" ("Human Clay")