Reflections on the 50 years of Os inconfidentes (1972), by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, at the Bicentennial of Independence

Abstract

On the 150th anniversary of the Independence of Brazil, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade premieres the film Os inconfidentes (1972). The plot revolves around the colonial issue in the 18th century. Thus, the 1970s, socially and politically troubled, meet 1789 to question the reflexes of a country in which the future seems to be continuously linked to a formation full of fissures and traumas. Among literary and historical references (SILVA, 2016), the plot is developed with the Romanceiro da inconfidência (Cecilia Meireles), arcadian poems, the Autos de Devassa etc. Thus, eighteenth-century abuses are opposed to dictatorial violence (NAPOLITANO 2014) from dialogical counterpoints (BAKHTIN, 2011) that, in the Bicentennial in 2022, somehow allude to memories and histories of Brazil.