Cinema
Rough Diamond
Ganga bruta
Humberto Mauro · 1933
Synopsis
Marcos, a wealthy engineer, discovers on his wedding night that his wife was not a virgin and kills her. Acquitted despite the scandal made by the press, he leaves for Guaraíba, a small town where he directs the construction of a factory. There he meets Décio, who lives with his paralysed mother and with Sônia, his adoptive sister, to whom he is engaged. Sônia is attracted to Marcos, who drinks to forget her and then falls in love with her.
Context
Begun in 1931 under the title Dança das Chamas and shot until 1932 in Rio and at Guaxindiba, the film was produced by Adhemar Gonzaga's Cinédia studio and was released on 29 May 1933 at the Alhambra cinema in Rio. Conceived as a silent film with music on disc, it received a few recorded voices along the way. According to the English-language encyclopaedia, it was poorly received and lost the studio a great deal of money; restored in 1952 for a retrospective of Brazilian cinema, it struck the future filmmakers of Cinema Novo, and Glauber Rocha ranked it among the best films of the country.
Who it is for
A film of eighty-two minutes, partly with sound, that proceeds through images rather than dialogue.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's masterpiece, it ranks twenty-fourth among the hundred best Brazilian films in 2015.