How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (1971) 84m
Brazilian natives capture a French mercenary (Arduino Colassanti) while fighting the invading Portuguese and tell him that he will be eaten after six months of forced residence in their village. Nelson Pereira dos Santos directs his film in a documentary style, with much harsh natural lighting and a hand-held camera that often lingers over events playing out before it. The primary point of the film is to show us the 16th century culture clash of Europeans and native South Americans but because this is a Brazilian film it's impossible to ignore any attendant political criticism of European colonial practises during that period of history (the film-makers should have taken a hearty bite out of the Spanish while they were at it). The story is interspersed with historical quotes which aren't as ironic as you would expect after watching the pre-title scenes, which have a different beat to them than the rest of the film.
I've never seen any appeal in the cannibalism sub-genre (these movies are either pretentiously metaphoric, witlessly Freudian, or good old-fashioned gross-outs) but it's a theme that suits the film's purpose very well. Unlike other directors such as Ruggero Deodato or Umberto Lenzi, who exploit documentary techniques to make us recoil from the mix of fictionalized cannibalism and factual brutality, Santos keeps the cannibalism theme present in the background only. The fertile, natural setting, lazy lifestyle and nubile native women (there's barely a stitch of clothing to be seen in this movie) make us forget any such threat -- even Colassanti and his appointed wife laugh over the details of his death ritual -- and because the village's "captive" is not caged and roams the small island we have the impression of him as a free man. Furthermore, it's hard for us to view Colassanti as the same person -- or victim -- we were introduced to at the beginning of the story. He throws away his clothes, shaves his beard and head, and goes native; essentially integrating himself into the tribe's lifestyle and helping them fight their enemies. In one sense, he becomes a worthy addition to the village, but in another, he's also the kind of guy any chief would be proud to eat. By stripping Colassanti's life -- and the movie -- to its essentials, Santos pares down the politics of aggression for what they are: men eating other men.
sburridge@hotmail.com
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