Tent of Miracles (1997)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Political Satire, Satire  |   Run Time - 130 min.  |   Countries - Brazil  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Clarke Fountain

This Brazilian satire is by one of the founders of the Cinema Novo filmmaking movement, Nelson Pereira dos Santos. The film chronicles the chaos that results when a prominent American Nobel Prize winner arrives in Bahía, with nothing but praise on his lips for a long-forgotten local writer-scientist named Pedro Archanjo. When the media finally discover who Archanjo was and what he espoused, they are completely horrified to discover that he was a man who believed that the way to improve the lot of humanity was for people of various races to marry and have children by one another in mixed-race marriages. Further, Archanjo clearly acted on his beliefs. The rampant racism of Brazilians, which is almost never discussed, is completely exposed. Flashbacks show Brazilians listening with approving interest to talks by Nazi race-theoreticians in the 1930s. In the present, the American is seen to be applying Archanjo's theories, by having an affair with a local mestizo woman.

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Keywords

Nobel-Prize, racism, winner