Skip to main content

After the Silence

The Studio

Five stars

 

The first thing the three Afro-Brazilian women and a man who sit at tables in front of a triptych of screens do is applaud the demise of Brazil’s Bolsonaro regime and the country’s return to democracy. As opening statements go in writer/director Christiane Jatahy’s multi-faceted dissection of the long-term fallout of slavery, racism and blatant power grabs in Brazil, it speaks volumes. As the women recount first-hand litanies of land grabs, assassination and abuse of Brazil’s indigenous black culture, it is as if we are witnesses at some truth and reconciliation hearing.

 

What follows in Jatahy’s dizzying construction is a remarkable mash up of historical fiction, archive film footage and community ritual that mixes live performance with onscreen re-enactments and surround sound music in an aesthetic fusion that brings its points home with devastating power.

 

Jatahy’s production draws from contemporary Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira Junior’s best-selling novel about Afro-Brazilian sisters, Torto Arado (Crooked Plow), first published in 2019. She also incorporates excerpts from filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho’s 1984 documentary,  Cabramarcado para morrer (Twenty Years Later). This is a study of peasant leader, João Pedro Teixeira, who was killed in 1962 by local landowners.

 

Coutinho began his film in 1964, only to fall foul of the authorities, before returning to the material in 1984. As the three women on stage talk directly to the audience about the murder of those closest to them, their actions are amplified by contemporary film footage beamed behind them to give extra dimensions to the work.

 

After the Silence is the final part of Jatahy’s ‘trilogy of horror’ that began with Dusk, her metatextual reimagining of Lars von Trier’s film, Dogville, seen at Edinburgh International Festival in 2023. As her Brazilian cast of Caju Bezerra, Aduni Guedes, Juliana França and Gal Pereira perform in Portuguese with English surtitles, this makes for something of a prodigal’s return for Rio de Janeiro born Jatahy. This unleashes a ferocious piece of hidden history that becomes a highly charged polemic. Infused with a deep-set artistry, the result is an unmissable creation that is both damnation and purging.


The Herald, August 24th 2024

 

ends 

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Billy Elliot The Musical

Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
1 comment
Read more

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more