Macunaima, the eternal outsider - 1969 Brazilian film - Strangers on the Screen

UNESCO Courier, Oct, 1989 by Antonio Rodrigues

The comic tone of the film and its presentation as a fable conceals a deeper truth-we are hostile or indifferent to outsiders because we do not know what motivates them. Macunaima is not a solitary hero in the style of the wandering cowboy or lawman of the western-he lives only for the moment and is constantly having to save his skin in a world which, in the words of the director of the film, is essentially cannibalistic".

For Macunaima, as for all those without code or creed and entirely absorbed by themselves, other people are always an impenetrable mystery and the world is opaque. Everyone else is "Them". n