25 year-old Carlos (Walmor Chagas, in his film début) is an employee of the Volskwagen car factory in S?o Paulo, during the Brazilian auto industry boom (1957-1961). He leaves VW to work as manager for Arturo (Otelo Zeloni), a modest Italian immigrant who strikes it rich selling auto parts for big car manufacturers. In non-chronological order, we follow Carlos' gradual personal and professional breakdown as he desperately and unsuccessfully searches for ethics, truth and his own roots in his oppressing middle-class existence. All he sees around him is futility and mendacity, becoming increasingly unstable and desperate as he confronts reality: the frustrating experience of industrial work and capitalist/bourgeois values, represented by the simpleton, corrupt, social climbing Arturo; the exasperating conventionality of marriage, parenthood and family life, represented by his dreary relationship with his petty-minded fiancée/wife Luciana (Eva Wilma) and their baby son; the vacuous hedonism of his lover Ana (Darlene Glória), who takes advantage of the company of rich, powerful men; and the shallow intellectualism of his suicidal ex-lover Hilda (Spanish actress Ana Esmeralda, voice-dubbed in Portuguese). All of them (including Carlos) are ready to be devoured by the glittering, magnetic, blood-sucking city of S?o Paulo.
In 1965, Cinema Novo (the Brazillian New Wave) was at an effervescent crossroad, and "S?o Paulo S/A" is one of its most emblematic films. After initially dealing with political, land and social issues regarding the "destitute people" (Nelson Pereira dos Santos' "Vidas Secas", Glauber Rocha's "Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol", the episode film "Cinco Vezes Favela", Paulo César Saraceni's "Arraial do Cabo", etc), the second phase of Cinema Novo approached the "angry", disillusioned, politically-aware, young middle-class Brazilian man in ethical and existential crisis: "S?o Paulo S/A" belongs to this phase, along with Saraceni's "O Desafio" (1965), Rocha's "Terra em Transe" (1967) and Gustavo Dahl's "O Bravo Guerreiro" (1968), among others. They're also related to international films investigating the role of non-conformist younger generation in the 1960s society: Bertolucci's "Prima della Revoluzione" (1964), Bellocchio's "I Pugni i Tasca" (1965) etc.
The Brazilian Cinema Novo production was essentially rooted in Rio de Janeiro. WIth "S?o Paulo S/A", first-time director/writer Luís Sérgio Person, at 29, single-handedly represented the young generation of S?o Paulo's filmmakers joining the movement: he was the first to address and criticize the phenomenon of S?o Paulo's economic boom, consolidated as the biggest and richest South American metropolis in a period of roughly 10 years (1955-1965), thanks to the nationalization of auto industries and their cascade effects on other highly lucrative businesses (highways, civil engineering, transport, multi-fold services). Money was rolling in non-stop, and many humble neighborhoods of S?o Paulo were replaced by huge skyscrapers and modern industries (Carlos is repeatedly humming the song "Favela", that talks of the old shantytowns being replaced by big buildings). Carlos is skeptical of a so-called "progress" that benefits only a few and doesn't bring any real change in social conventions, human relationships and labor rights (S?o Paulo's auto industry and its dire labor conditions would be eventually lead to the creation of the biggest working-class political movement in Brazil, organizing massive strikes in the late 1970s that ultimately led to the foundation of Brazilian Labor Party in the early 1980s, led by Lula da Silva, who in 2002 was elected the first ever working-class President of Brazil).
There are minor letdowns in the film: anachronisms galore, as the film is set between 1957 and 1961 and everything you see is definitely from 1965 (it's a treat for vintage car aficionados, with Simcas, Gordinis, Karmann Ghias, Aero-Wyllis, VW beetles, etc). Ana Esmeralda is awfully miscast and makes her character sound expendable and fatuous; a real shame. Cláudio Petraglia's music is unduly bombastic, belying the film's drier, unsentimental texture. However, the assets are very solid: the non-chronological story-telling is definitely ahead of its time. The editing is agile and the dialog includes bold language in a time of rigid censorship. The cast includes Eva Wilma, who's perhaps too old to play a 21 year-old girl, but compensates with a strong, against-type performance that covers a large acting spectrum. Darlene Glória is already incredibly confident, beautiful, sexy and natural in her film début at 22 and Otelo Zeloni is just perfect as Arturo, the shady character who's so simpaticone he's impossible to dislike.
Person's direction is amazingly accomplished (considering it was his first) and he skilfully avoids traps: Carlos is a modern middle-class anti-hero who's NEVER "nice" or "appealing" or "charismatic"; he's always inflexibly uncompromising and aggressively candid. He doesn't fit in, he doesn't inspire "pity" or "compassion" or "solidarity". Lying and compromising become almost physically nauseating for him, and you can feel his pain as his behavior inevitably hurts people around him. If we care about him at all, it's because it's impossible to dismiss someone with such a relentless commitment to truth and, of course, because of Walmor Chagas' remarkable performance. Though inexperienced as a film actor, he holds it all solidly together: you won't catch him on a single false note. But the film's real star may well be Ricardo Aronovich's camera: fluid, unhampered, efficient whether capturing big crowds, assembly lines, small apartments, beach resorts, parties, faces, bodies, cars. No wonder he went on to work for maestri such as Costa-Gavras, Louis Malle, Peter Brook, Ettore Scola and Alain Resnais.
"S?o Paulo S/A" is mandatory for everyone interested in Cinema Novo and/or Latin American socially concerned films; but also for people who like intelligent, well-acted, unconventional story- telling mixing fiction and documentary-style. It's certainly rewarding, and there's a new DVD release by VideoFilmes with subtitles in English and Spanish.
IMDb