Alma e Corpo de uma Raça

The film is a priceless audiovisual relic, which made me feel deeply moved. Off course it is far from a great narrative flick, but its footage and documentary elements not only have good quality (congrats for cinematographers Afrodisio Pereira de Castro and José Stamato, and camaraman Ruy Santos) but also have an outstanding importance for the history of Brazilian sport and for recording life in Rio de Janeiro in the 1930s. The plot is a romantic comedy with a love triangle story which is merged with the transition from amateur to professional football. There was also the transition from silent to sound cinema, and one of the drawbacks is precisely terrible acting (which turned to produce unintentional gags, besides the sometimes funny intended ones). The fact that a great part of the movie was shot outdoor, and not only inside the studio as was so common in the first half of XXth century, is one of the reasons the film is so precious despite its problems. Spectator sees Rio de Janeiro streets with few cars and crossed by tram rails. Besides that, there are several scenes of sports, mainly football but not only, and of players and athletes, mostly from Flamengo but also from Fluminense, including extremely famous and important ones. They do not appear in static photographs, but actually training, playing, talking in the changing room, and even singing and playing instruments (unfortunately, the sound of the latter scene is currently lost). Stars like "black diamond" Leônidas da Silva, "divine master" Domingos da Guia, and "black arrow" Jarbas appear in detail, among others who I could not identify. There is a match in Gávea Stadium when its structure was still being built (indeed, the movie was partially produced by Flamengo and its grossing was used to finance the building of the very stadium!). In that match scene it was possible to see Lagoon Rodrigo de Freitas very near the field, and it is very special because of a particular event which was remarkable: the lagoon used to be larger, before an artificial increase of the land area around it, and it was closer to the Stadium; in a derby that Fluminense was winning, the thre-coloured players shoot the ball intentionally several times into the water in order to have the time advancing and then avoiding a reaction of Flamengo. Although it was a different match, the scene made it easy to understand how the famous Lagoon Fla-Flu happened! There is also in the movie a long and detailed scene of a match of the Fla-Flu derby, held in Laranjeiras Stadium (Fluminense's), and it is possible to see it in various angles, including the box office. The movie also shows Flamengo's old headquarters, a building that does not exist anymore, in Flamengo neighborhood (now Flamengo's headquarters are placed in Gávea, where the aforementioned stadium is located). The historical movie also shows athletes of Flamengo from other sports, such as rowing, athletics (racing, jumping and throwing), swimming, and even wrestling! I am very grateful for Cinédia and Cinemateca Brasileira for restoring the movie, and for CineFOOT festival for screening it. I hope I will be able to watch it many times, and notice more details and identify more past idols of Flamengo. By the way, it was originally released on Flamengo and Proclamation of the Republic anniversary, and had a special screening for president Getúlio Vargas and other authorities.