Mirrors 2021

A erva do rato

Júlio Bressane I 2008 I 80'

SYNOPSIS

A ERVA DO RATO is a free adaptation of the stories A Esqueleto and A Causa Secreta by Machado de Assis. The characters are He and She. While walking through a cemetery, without knowing each other, Ella stumbles and falls. He helps her and knowing that she has no one in the world, he offers to take care of her forever. At home, he serves her a herbal tea and tells her a story: a story about the architecture of the city, the poison of the old indigenous tribes and the mysterious "Rat's Grass" (Tangaracá).

BIOGRAPHY

Júlio Bressane

JÚLIO BRESSANE (Rio de Janeiro, 1946) is one of the true masters of the history of Brazilian cinema. He is one of the creators of the cinema marginal movement, which shook the foundations of the world film scene from the late 1960s onwards. His lustrous filmography includes fundamental titles such as Tabu (1982), Dias de Nietzsche em Turim (2001), Cleópatra (2007), and A Erva do Rato (2008). Capitu e o Capítulo (2021) is his latest feature film.

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Critical text

A Erva do Rato is an intimate film showing two human characters striving to create a completely independent world for themselves in a home invaded by external forces that gradually become apparent. The film is based on a pair of short stories written by arguably one of Brazil’s greatest writers, Machado de Assis. Bressane, like Machado de Assis, finds power and affliction in the tragicomic efforts people make to preserve themselves by projecting their will onto others. As a result, an insight is gained into the divide between the potentially limitless imagination of any human being and the limitation of the flesh. AARON CUTLER

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