O SIGNO DO CAOS
(THE SIGN OF CHAOS)
Dir. Rogério Sganzerla, 2003
80 mins. Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16 – 10 PM
MONDAY, DECEMBER 23 – 7:30 PM

“The invention of a new artistic language is like a joke that has been told so many times it is no longer funny.” – Rogério Sganzerla

“A film is like a match. It only lights once.”

The Brazilian troubadour’s final outing is through and through a Sganzerla product, channeling all of the festering outrage that had suffused and defined his work during the dictatorship. One can sense a return to the historical re-enactments in NEM TUDO E VERDADE in the filming of the imagined machinations surrounding IT’S ALL TRUE, only here it is Sganzerla’s venom directed at the governmental forms of suppression and erasure that take center stage. Set to the music of Charles Mingus and shot like an experimental political thriller, O SIGNO DE CAOS portrays the censorious treatment of Orson Welles’ film while mourning the repressive power against freedom and creativity. The sensation is not unlike watching the films of Sganzerla’s udigrúdi compatriot, Jairo Ferrera, a director possessing a disdain for all proper aesthetics. The film is haunted by its Dionysian ending with reels of film burning, a fitting farewell from the Brazilian firebrand.