The Angel Was Born

This movie starts with a few minutes of black out: nothing but music and a black screen. I hear Godard did this trick first. Good for him, if so. I have not seen his movie, but I doubt it is as good as this one, and I do like some of Godard's weird ones.

"The Angel Was Born" is a movie about two roaming outlaws. You can try and read a lot into its structure, or just enjoy its deliberate primitivism. It is both very serious and a joke on everybody. Or so I feel. You may think otherwise, be bored, or even be left in a joyous state of shock, as it happened to me. If you like very strange stuff, you may like this one.

Urtiga (Milton Gonçalves) and Santamaria (Hugo Carvana) are two mean, sadistic and cold blood killers. Santamaria claims that he has seen an angel, and is very mystic. They escape from the police siege in a slum in a hill and hide in an isolated house. When the owner arrives with two friends, they kill the man and submit the two women to many humiliations, before killing them. While moving to another place, they leave a trail of blood, cowardly executing many persons.

In the end of the 60's in Brazil, young directors broke with the Brazilian movement "Cinema Novo" (meaning "New Cinema"), and begin a new movement, called "Cinema Marginal" (meaning "Underground Cinema"). "O Anjo Nasceu" is a milestone of this new current of filmmakers, together with "O Bandido da Luz Vermelha". Júlio Bressane presents a very raw non-linear surrealistic violent story of two criminals. Quentin Tarantino became famous with his "Reservoir Dogs", but "O Anjo Nasceu" is more violent, sick and credible than the famous Hollywoodian movie. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Anjo Nasceu" ("The Angel is Born")