O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (1997)

reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten


FOUR DAYS IN SEPTEMBER

By Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Miramax Films Director: Bruno Barreto Writer: Leopoldo Serran/Book by Fernando Gaberia Cast: Alan Arkin, Pedro Cardoso, Fernanda Torres, Luiz Fernand Guimaraes, Claudia Abreu, Nelson Dantas, Matheus Nachtegaele, Marco Ricca, Mauricio Goncalves, Caio Junqueria, Selton Mello, Eduardo Moskovis, Caroline Kava, Fisher Stevens

When a former U.S. Ambassador to Brazil, Charles Burke Elbrick, states in 1969 that he is opposed to his country's involvement in Vietnam and that he is essentially against the the military government in Brazil, we wonder whether he is telling the truth. Aren't ambassadors instructed to uphold their government's positions publicly, whatever their private beliefs? Perhaps the reason for his liberalism is the circumstances under which he expresses himself. Surrounded by terrorists-- or freedom fighters, depending on your politics--he is looking down the muzzle of a firearm held on him by some young people who just plain don't look so dangerous, but he is convinced that they mean business.

"Four Days in September," based on a book written ten years after the events by Fernando Gaberia called "O que e isso, companheiro?," is neither documentary nor Hollywood-style political thriller. It is, however, an intelligently fashioned piece of film-making by a director who respects his audience without capitulating to a talking-heads format which Americans are familiar with if they watch Sunday morning TV.

If Bruno Barreto, who has paced his film smartly, wanted to take sides, he would have made a movie like Costa-Gavras, firmly on the side of the "freedom fighters" and against the military junta ruling Brazil. If he were a Hollywood director like Mimi Leder ("Peacemakers") he would have made virtual automatons out of the "terrorists" and evoked big cheers from the audience when the Americans showed them who's boss. Taking a middle ground--an effective step indeed--Barreto shows all of his characters as real human beings, not good guys and bad guys, proving that politics involves genuine complexities, drawing upon many shades of gray.

"Four Days in September" is a story from the pen of Fernando Gaberia, a journalist and congressman for the Green party. His subject is the amateurish, but in many ways successful move by a tiny group of moderately disciplined leftist individuals in Rio to win the release of political prisoners and at the same time call the attention of the world to the torture practiced by agents of the military junta in Brazil. Their plan is to kidnap the American Ambassador--who lives in splendor in an estate in Rio--and force the government to broadcast their demands through the media while releasing fifteen imprisoned leftists to Mexico. They finance their operation by robbing a bank and, using fake names to frustrate the police should any of their number get caught and tortured, they take Ambassador Elbrick hostage at gunpoint while he is riding in his limousine without security.

While the film has its share of action scenes which will please all but the most thrill-addicted moviegoers, its real merit comes across inside the safe house in which the crew are holding their prisoner. It is there that Barreto highlights the humanity of all parties, the most ironic touch being the certainty that Fernando aka Paulo (Pedro Cardoso), who has gotten to know his captive and to feel compassion for him, will not hesitate to execute the ambassador precisely at the appointed hour if the group's demands are not met. For his part Elbrick is neither unshaken hero nor bowl of jello as he counts what could be his final hours on the earth. He speaks with genuine respect to his captors and is even fatherly toward the most beautiful and seductive of them, Renee (Claudia Abreu), who had used her wiles to gain information from the ambassador's head of security back at the mansion.

These terrorists are nothing like the Gary Oldman character in "Air Force One," though in a way they are just as fanatical in their beliefs. The firebrand, given the revolutionary name Paulo, is a nerdy-looking guy with thick glasses who, we are told, has held university students spellbound with his speeches. It's difficult to believe that this mild-looking chap would actually shoot the ambassador in the head, as he is ordered to do by the leader of the platoon, Jonas (Matheus Nachtegaele), particularly after escorting the diplomat to the bathroom during the latter's stroke of incontinence. The only thuggish person in the lot appears to be Jonas, who is older than the all but one of the others in his group, a man who has stated that he will not extend the deadline one minute and that he fully intends to carry out his threat to kill the U.S. representative.

It's equally difficult to believe that the other side, represented by a secret service torturer who admits to his wife and his colleague that he can't sleep nights because of his pro-government activities, is not made up as well of genuine human beings who are caught up in having to do their unpleasant job. They are not depicted as sadists.

Barreto has done such a fine job directing Leopold Serran's adaptation of Fernando Gaberia's book that you come away quite sympathetic to the young people, who are true believers appalled by the censorship of their government and by the campaign of imprisonment and torture of political opponents of the regime. Renee is cuddly-sweet, Maria (Fernanda Torres), who comes on at first as hard-headed, ultimately sobs that she does not want to die, and the rest of the gang are just plain so much like polite middle-class lads that the whole movie challenges our ways of thinking about revolutionaries. "Four Days in September" is an exceptional work in its balance, its believability, its dignity, providing both insight into a violent practice that has captured headlines for the past thirty years and a good deal of entertainment for the audience. Not Rated. Running Time: 114 minutes. (C) 1997 Harvey Karten


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