"O Príncipe do Fogo" ("The Prince of Fire") is a short documentary on Brazil's most notorious and ferocious criminals, Febrônio Índio do Brasil, and his then current incarceration at a mental hospital facility becoming the person who spend more behind bars than anyone else here in the country - almost 40 years. A minor background: his many crimes were kidnapping, torture, killing and rape of young boys back in the 1920's, tattooing some of them saying that he was part of a religious cult. He end up being part of popular culture of the early 20th Century due to his horrendous crimes, and even some parents used his name as a Boogeyman to frighten rebel children ("Don't stay out so late, because Febrônio might catch you!"). In between escapes and murders, in 1935 he was locked up for a good, but for reason of insanity he was committed to hospital treatment, where he stayed until his death in 1984, at age 89.
Silvio Da-Rin's film covers exactly the year Febrônio died, and is very evident the frail mental state of this senior citizen with his incoherent delusional talks, even "provoked" by the filmmaker asking what he intends to do if he were about to be released (obviously he wouldn't get out but he thought he could, already with plans in mind). Unfortunately, we don't have newsreels from the period of his crimes except the newspapers clips that appear in the movie (but there's some fictional elements introduced here with Guilherme Karam playing a radio host who talks about Febrônio's wave of crimes) since it'd be interesting to make a contrast in between the young killer who terrorized Rio de Janiero in the 1920's and 1930's with the old, senile and quite pitiful poor excuse of a man that we have to chance to see walking around, eating, in a complete and strange calmness. Of his actions, all he says is that people invented all those facts.
If interested, watch it for sheer curiosity and some historical value in getting to know more about an infamous character from the past. It's interesting to notice that he accomplished the feat of being incarcerated for the longest period in Brazil - not even the Red Light Bandit managed to get that - which makes us reflect about the functionality of our penal system that succeeds with effect in sending insane criminals to life imprisonment (non existent here) but fails to give proper convictions to sane murderers, who are only allowed 30 years time in jail, usually gets released earlier and start their crime routine all over again. Da-Rin wasn't just telling Febrônio's story, he was making its audience to analyze what goes on inside a mental facility that treated the guy - in fact it's mentioned but not seen that he was under several electroshock therapy (which explains a great deal about the old man's confusing state), places that also lack in structure but they manage to hold him and similar individuals in there; and we also analyze many other topics not presented in the film (laws, judicial system, punishment, etc). Febrônio's conviction was an exemplary case that should happen occasionally, for insane and sane people, putting them to a specific place (hospital or jail) and that the law gets followed with no exception. A change must be made. 8/10.
