O Desafio (1966) User Reviews

A Bold and Courageous Film of Paulo Cesar Saraceni

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 23 August 2010]

A couple of months after the military coup d'état of 1964 in Brazil, the housewife Ada (Isabella) is married with the industrialist Dr. Mário that owns a factory with 2,500 workers. Ada has a love affair with the idealistic leftist journalist Marcelo (Oduvaldo Vianna Filho) that is depressed and feeling powerless with the military dictatorship in Brazil. Marcelo had the intention of writing a book and works in a magazine, but he is in an identity crisis with the new system. He also disapproves the bourgeois way of life of his lover and ends their relationship.

"O Desafio" is a bold and courageous film of the Brazilian director Paulo Cesar Saraceni. In 1964, there was a military coup d'état in Brazil followed by a military dictatorship. Despite the repression, Saraceni made "O Desafio" in a few days using hand camera only and the environment could be not more realistic, reflecting the present moment of Brazilian history. Another attraction is Maria Bethânia singing "Carcará". My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "O Desafio" ("The Dare")

Thought-provoking

[lso-soares · 7/10 · 11 February 2022]

Written and directed by Paulo Cezar Saraceni, with actors Isabella (Ada), Oduvaldo Viana Filho (Marcelo), Sérgio Britto (Mário), among others.

Theme film, along with Entranced Earth (Terra em Transe), by Glauber Rocha, from the second class of the course I take on Cinema Novo with Prof. Alisson Gutemberg, from Cinema with Theory. I didn't know about The Dare (O Desafio) and it was a pleasant surprise.

Produced shortly after the 1964 military coup, The Dare has as its plot a story of two lovers, Ada and Marcelo, with the political issues of the time dictating the course of this relationship. Ada is married to a textile industrialist, rich but unhappy in her monotonous routine of parties and receptions. She found in Marcelo an inspiration and an escape from her boring life. Marcelo works at a magazine, as a journalist, tries to write a book, but his concern with the consequences of the coup on the country's social life leaves him frustrated and without prospects. However, Marcelo does not embody the people in the film, as he is more intellectual. A lover of literature, always reciting verses of poetry, and performing arts, when he has the opportunity to see a session of the show Opinião, which was a resounding success in Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s, with Maria Bethânia debuting on the Rio stages. There is even a scene with Bethânia on stage singing Carcará, an emblematic song for the period. Without saying anything directly, the song indicates the situation experienced in Brazil in the 1960s.

It is important to point out that all this took place before AI-5, when repression and censorship took on gigantic proportions. Perhaps this film would not pass censorship if it was released after 1968.

In the course of November, we had classes on the French Nouvelle Vague, when I was able to go deeper into some films, among them Pierrot, le Fou, by Godard, released in 1965, that is, in the same year from The Dare. There are many aesthetic and scenography similarities. Even with the couple protagonists of both films, with the bourgeois woman, bored with her life, and the man with artistic aspirations.