This history plot of this movie was inspired from real facts depicted in Jean de Lery's book "Voyage en terre de Brésil" (portuguese: Viagem à terra do Brasil), which was written after what Lery himself witnessed before he left for Europe. The text which is read in the overture (in Portuguese) is a letter from Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, the founder and leader of what should have been the "France Antarctique", a French colony in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This enterprise was made in the context of French religion wars, and there was a latent antagonism between protestant and Catholics which was brought to Rio, ending with the expulsion of several French, which left for the continent (the colony was located in an island about 1 km from land – today is the Naval College). These were the historical facts from which Nelson Pereira dos Santos started his movie, as nobody ever knows the destiny of some Frenchmen who were forced to left the island, so he made a history from this. The year of these events was 1557, as in Villegagnon's letter in the overture, and it is in Lery's book. By 1594 there was practically no more Tupinambá indians, killed many years before by smallpox and other diseases and Portuguese weapons (don't believe everything you read in Wikipedia). I've seen this movie in the big screen back in 1971, and I can tell it left a strong impression because of the nudity but most of people came to accept it first because everybody perceived a great sense of authenticity, even without any historical knowledge and that the Tupinambá's life really should have been the way it was portrayed by the director. The location of the movie was in Paraty, 1970, in a landscape very close to that of 400 years before, magnificent beaches, mountains and exuberant nature. However if you were Portuguese and felled in the hands of the Tupinambá that will not help much. A great movie, well ahead of its time and a precious and historically accurate tale about the European colonization of the then strange world of South America.
Review of How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman
