General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Macunaíma

Macunaíma is a 1969 Brazilian comedy directed by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, adapted from the 1928 modernist novel Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade (no relation to the filmmaker). It follows the folkloric trickster hero Macunaíma, the "hero with no character," who is born a black man in the jungle, turns white, and wanders from the backlands into a rapidly industrializing 1960s Brazil. The film is one of the best-known works of the Cinema Novo movement and its only box-office hit.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director, writer, producer	Joaquim Pedro de Andrade (1932–1988), who wrote the argument, screenplay, dialogue, and adaptation¹
Source	The 1928 experimental novel (a "rhapsody") Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade (1893–1945)³
Principal cast	Grande Otelo (black Macunaíma), Paulo José (white Macunaíma and the mother), Jardel Filho (Venceslau Pietro Pietra), Dina Sfat (Ci, the guerrilla fighter)³
Dates	Premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 2 September 1969; commercial release in Rio de Janeiro on 3 November 1969³^•¹
Technical	35 mm Eastmancolor, shot in Rio de Janeiro; the Cinemateca Brasileira record lists 108 minutes, while other prints are cataloged at 104, 95, or 110 minutes¹^•⁴
Box office	The only box-office hit of the Cinema Novo movement²
Major award	Gran Condor de Oro for best film at the 10th Mar del Plata International Festival (1970)¹

Spoilers

Plot

Macunaíma is born in the depths of the virgin forest, a black fetus dropped head-first by his crouching mother. He runs in wild hallucination through the jungle, turning from black to white, and then leaves the backlands for the city in the company of his two brothers, Jiguê and Maanape.¹ In the strange, hostile city he loves the guerrilla fighter Ci and many other women, and confronts the millionaire villain Venceslau Pietro Pietra in his quest to recover the muirakitã, the magic stone he inherited from Ci.¹

After a tumultuous urban adventure he recovers the stone and returns to the jungle laden with city trinkets, but his trickster disposition no longer fits the environment and his brothers abandon him. Alone and hungry, unwilling to hunt, he recounts his adventures to a parrot until a sudden urge to play leads him into the arms of the Iara, a water nymph.¹ In the film's climax, the villain attempts to shove Macunaíma into a pool in which the Brazilian dish feijoada is being prepared, so that he may devour him.⁸

The racial transformation is central to the film's satire. Macunaíma is born black, played by Grande Otelo, and is turned white by the waters of a geyser, after which Paulo José takes the part; this is often read as a critique of Brazilian policy-makers' attempts to whiten the population in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The transformation changes nothing in his conduct: the white character displays the same laziness and opportunism, reversing racist stereotypes built by the whitening ideal.⁸^•⁹

The film and its source

Joaquim Pedro de Andrade based his film on the 1928 experimental novel Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade, a foundational text of Brazilian modernism. Mário de Andrade had drawn the character from the writings of the ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grünberg, which describe a metamorphic, immoral, libidinous trickster demigod; the writer used him as an archetype for thinking about Brazil's not fully formed cultural identity.⁵ In the novel, the hero migrates to São Paulo in pursuit of a lost magical stone and battles the nouveau riche industrialist and collector Venceslau Pietro Pietra, a reversal of European narratives of discovery in which the indigenous figure is the explorer of a new world of concrete buildings and machines.⁵

Brazilian cinema took forty years to establish a relationship with Mário de Andrade's work; the adaptation was filmed in 1968, with the screenplay begun in 1967.⁶ The director did not simply copy the novel but questioned it through parody and allegory, and he transposed the action to 1960s Brazil with a Tropicalist, carnivalesque aesthetic of excess, in dialogue with the low-budget chanchada comedies popular from the 1930s to the 1950s.⁷^•⁵ The score mixes Johann Strauss's "The Blue Danube," Heitor Villa-Lobos pieces including "Canto aos Heróis do Brasil" and "Bachiana Brasileira No. 8," and various Brazilian songs.³

Production and censorship

The film was produced by Difilm and Filmes do Sêrro Ltda., with Grupo Filmes Ltda. and Condor Filmes S.A. as co-producers, and distributed by Difilm, Condor Filmes, and Embrafilme. Guido Cosulich was the director of photography and Eduardo Escorel the editor.¹^•³

Censorship. The film was finished under the military dictatorship, after Institutional Act No. 5 of December 1968 had tightened repression and censorship. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade was detained by the DOPS, the Department of Political and Social Order, during the editing of Macunaíma, his second arrest.⁶ A report by the Serviço de Censura de Diversões Públicas of the Federal Police, signed by C. Montebello on 30 July 1969, described the original author as "rebelde às tradições sociais em geral" (rebellious against social traditions in general) and proposed more than fifteen cuts, eliminating visible breasts and bare buttocks, statues with exposed breasts, two riddle dialogues, the phrase "muita saúva e pouca saúde," and the word "caga." It also recommended removing scenes in which the symbol of the Alliance for Progress was clearly visible on a young woman's clothing.⁶

Reception and awards

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 2 September 1969 and opened commercially in Rio de Janeiro on 3 November 1969, days after General Emílio Garrastazu Médici took office as president.³^•⁶ It collected a series of Brazilian prizes in 1969: the Carmem Santos Prize for best national production and the Coruja de Ouro for set design and for Grande Otelo's acting from the Instituto Nacional de Cinema; the Golfinho de Ouro for best film from the Museu da Imagem e do Som; best screenplay at the 5th Festival de Brasília, where it also won best argument, dialogue, set design, costume design, and supporting actor for Jardel Filho; best film at the 1st Festival de Manaus and at the Festival de Marília; and the Air France Prize for best film, director, and actor.¹ At the 10th Mar del Plata International Festival in 1970 it won the Gran Condor de Oro for best film, and in 1972 it took the Aquarius Prize for best screenplay at the New York Cinema Novo Festival.¹

Not everyone welcomed it. Some die-hard Cinema Novo members feared the movement had strayed too far from its original goals, and some critics read the film as a self-criticism of Cinema Novo itself. Yet in the shadow of the just-enacted AI-5 decree, satire and allegory had become survival tactics, and the film's popular success made it one of the principal moments of convergence between Cinema Novo and the public.²^•⁹

Legacy

The film is regarded as Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's most famous and most analyzed work, and the Brazilian Critics' Association has ranked it among the hundred best films in the history of Brazilian cinema.⁷^•¹⁰ Its off-screen line "Agora é cada um por si e Deus contra todos" (now every man for himself and God against all) was adopted by Werner Herzog as the subtitle of his film The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974).⁶ Caetano Veloso, a founder of the Tropicalist movement, later said the movement owed its very existence to the film.² A restored copy was released on home video, and the film continues to circulate in retrospectives of Brazilian cinema.¹¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Black comedy and satire films › Released 1939 to 1997

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?