Vidas Secas (Barren Lives) is the cornerstone of the Cinema Novo movement. Derived from Graciliano Ramos' eponymous novel, this Brazilian Grapes of Wrath is set in the early 1940s, and describes two years in the life of an itinerant cowhand's family struggling to eke out an existence in the drought-ravaged, landowner-dominated sertão of the country's Northeast. The film is stark in its imagery and a powerful documentation of the uprooted. At the time of its theatrical release, Vidas Secas was considered the absolute last word as a realistic film depiction of the wretched earth. Today it somehow seems much more - a white-hot, almost mystically intense pilgrim's progress through an unending purgatory with no other side.


 IMDb.............: tt0057654
 
 Year.............: 1963
 Runtime..........: 110 Minutes
 Country..........: Brazil
 Audio............: Portuguese (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
 Subtitles........: English
 Video Format.....: NTSC
 Aspect Ratio.....: 1.33:1
 DVD Source.......: DVD9
 DVD Format.......: Fullscreen
 DVD Distributor..: New Yorker Films
 Program..........: DVD Decrypter
 Bit Rate.........: 7.45 Mb/sec

 Menus............: [x] Untouched, intact.
 Video............: [x] Untouched, intact.
 DVD-Audio........: [x] Untouched, intact.
 DVD-Extras.......: [x] Untouched, intact.

Edition Details:
 • Short Film, Baleia the Dog  (19:54)
 • Discussion with Robert Stam, Co-Editor of Brazilian Cinema  (12:21)
 • Various Trailers

Posted originally at Cinamatik by TheProvider.