This endearingly crazy 1971 Brazilian film defies classification: its Portuguese title (Bangue bangue) refers to films we’d probably call “shoot-’em-ups,” director Andrea Tonacci called it a “Maoist detective comedy,” yet American audiences would probably consider it an experimental film. The anonymous urban protagonist experiences a series of absurd situations—including a crazy cab ride, an encounter with a wacky criminal gang, and lots of gunplay—but they’re stripped of any story that might explain them and infused with a unique anarchic energy, eventually suggesting our true animal nature. As with Godard, it’s partly an homage to genre filmmaking (there’s singing and dancing, a little sex, and lots of violence), but what really powers the film is Tonacci’s inventive camera. Working with a low budget, he choreographs a number of long takes that impart a scary authenticity to the action by confining it to a single space and time: in the opening shot, the protagonist argues with the cabdriver while the city goes by through the front windshield, and in other shots the camera remains static while characters move between the foreground and background. Throughout the film, the deep space of the image momentarily convinces the viewer, in a manner akin to surrealist painting, that the world really has gone mad. —Fred Camper
Andrea Tonacci was born in Rome in 1944. His family moved to Brazil when he was 9 years old, and resided in Sao Paulo , where he still lives today . From an early age, he became interested in painting and photography, and decided to study architecture and engineering in college , but later dropped out to devote himself to cinema.
He has written , directed and photographed award winning films including various shorts .
His first film was a short entitled “Eye for an Eye” that was released in 1965 . He then made another short “Bla Bla Bla” in 1968 and went on to direct his most known film to date “Bang Bang” which is considered to be a masterpiece from cinema marginal .
He directed a documentary in 1977 entitled “Conversations in Maranhão”
In 2006, he made the controversial documentary “Hills of Disorder” , for which he was awarded Best Director at the Gramado Film Festival in 2006. The film depicts the story of an Indian who had wandered for 10 years in central… read more
O filme causa estranhamento desde a abertura: créditos iniciais e plano-sequência dentro de um carro mostram de cara que Tonacci está mesmo 'brincando' com a gente e o próprio cinema. Nós, pelo vício nos modelos narrativos e gêneros, somos colocados diante de 'fiapos' de uma proto-história de situações visuais. O cinema, pela sátira e manipulação dos meios cinematográficos, fica a se ver como poucas vezes antes.
