Serras de desordem

Carapirú is a nomadic Indian who sees his family massacred in a surprise attack by ranchers. He manages to escape and, for 10 years wanders the hills of central Brazil. He is captured in November 1988 two thousand kilometres away from his starting point and taken by the explorer Sydney Possuelo to Brasília. Possuelo is a sertanista – a unique Brazilian phenomenon, a cross between a forest ranger, ethnographer and environmental activist.
Carapirú’s story is in every newspaper and arouses much controversy among historians and anthropologists as to his origin and identity. In the end he is identified as a Guajá Indian by an interpreter, who was himself orphaned at the age of 18 and rescued ten years earlier by the same sertanista from ill treatment at the hands of a rancher. Unusual surprises are to follow.
Andrea Tonacci’s first production in years, a masterful, fascinating story in a variety of cinematographic styles, is a plea against artificiality. The characters are played by those involved. Tonacci: ‘The film is a sort of documented fictional story about the overlapping of two worlds and two different groups of people who co-exist with and depend upon each other. It is an attempt to look at ourselves like human beings who are essentially alike, stripped of our cultural armour and our ethical-moral image.’ (GT)

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