Some of you might remember the 1984 “Quilombo”, a Brazilian film that
dramatized the struggles of slaves who successfully resisted their
slave-masters in the 18th century and created free settlements (quilombo
in Portuguese) in the north of the country. The opening paragraphs of
Vincent Canby’s review of that film would serve as a good introduction
to the brand-new documentary titled “Quilombo Country” now showing at
the Pioneer Theater in New York:
Toward the end of the 17th century, a sizable number of slaves from
Brazil’s great sugar plantations escaped to the northeast where, in
Pernambuco, they formed a legendary community (or quilombo), the
Republic of Palmares.
For a brief time, Palmares became the haven not only for runaway slaves
but also for Brazil’s Jews, poor white farmers and all others for whom
life elsewhere was hopeless. Until it was finally crushed by the armies
of the Portuguese king, Palmares was, according to the Brazilian film
director Carlos Diegues, ”the first democratic society we know of in the
Western hemisphere.”
First time director Leonard Abrams began working on a project to
document the daily lives of the contemporary descendants of these rebels
in 2001 and the film is clearly a labor of love. He basically allows
Afro-Brazilians from a number of quilombos to tell their story, which
revolves around a number of overlapping themes:
* the desire of the people to retain their African identity, which
includes religious observances that are a syncretic mixture of
Catholicism and African pantheism that the believers have no trouble
reconciling.
* a willingness to confront racism in Brazil, which in the words of
one interviewee manifested itself as a refusal to call the quilombolos
by their proper name. He was frequently addressed as “moreno”, the word
for “darkie,” even though people knew his name. He bitterly observes
that even the barnyard animals are given names.
* the persistence of a communal mode of production using the kinds
of food production technologies that their ancestors used, including
fishing and hunting with very rudimentary devices. A typical meal might
consist of armadillo roasted over an open fire. While this life does
offer a certain sense of freedom being outside the cash economy, it
comes at great costs. One quilombolo who moved to the city said that she
would never go back because of the hardships, including the need to walk
great distances every day for the basics of life. Only recently has
electricity and fresh water been introduced into the quilombo village,
thus attenuating these hardships to some extent.
* the conflict between the quilombos and large land-owners who have
used their economic power and their privileged relationship to the
courts and legislatures to encroach on traditional communal
land-holdings of the descendants of slaves. As frequently occurs with
American Indians, a quilombolo is suckered into selling his or her land
at a pittance.
full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/quilombo-country/
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