Bog of Beasts

Somewhere in rural Brazil, in a poor village in the middle of the sugar plantations, a young girl lives with her grandfather. Devoid of any affection and warmth, she spends her days as a house slave. The evenings are no better. Her brutal grandfather shows her off naked behind the filling station to local and passing machos, who gratify themselves while looking at her body. The only interest she gets, albeit dubious, comes from the young man who is digging a cesspit beside her grandfather’s house.
In spite of the beautiful light and landscape in his film – this is how Claudio Assis typifies the mental state in this distant corner of his country. Like a cesspit in which the men are obsessed by anti-female and violent sex and the adult women don’t think themselves or each other worth much. Their behaviour only predicts a cheerless future for the young girl.
It turns out not to be a question of social class. Even the most affluent young men from the surroundings violate every woman that comes their way. The director doesn’t sketch any possible way out of this inhuman situation. Bog of Beasts take stock in a very disconsolate way and cuts through heart and soul. The cesspit is never finished. (SdH)

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