A dead Frenchman's brain takes you on a 46-minute trip to 1935 Brazil. Yes, really.
The film evokes the stay in Brazil of Claude Levi-Strauss, an ethnologist, who stayed there from 1934 to 1938. His stay gave rise to the book "Tristes Tropiques". Based on images taken in 1935 and today, his statements reconstruct his intellectual journey in the field of ethnology. Searching for primitive worlds, he tried to understand the Indians whose decaying societies offered an "essence of social life." The work gives us an account of the importance of this scientific and philosophical expedition.
Direction
Three directors stitching time periods like a colonial Frankenstein.
Editing
1935 footage colliding with modern Brazil = temporal whiplash.
Writing
Lévi-Strauss's words: beautiful, problematic, unshakably French.
Director
Jorge Bodanzky
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Maurice Garrel—narrator and father of Philippe—recorded his lines without ever visiting Brazil. Pure voice, pure distance.
The film embodies 'Tristes Tropiques' the book: both mourn and perpetuate the very exoticism they critique. You can't escape the trap.
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