'Madame Sata': João's quite the character, but film misses

The synopsis for the Brazilian biopic "Madame Satã" is so packed with stuff it sounds comical. Lázaro Ramos plays the real-life João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976), an illiterate, homosexual, part-time pimp and con artist, who lives in the bohemian Lapa district of Rio de Janeiro in the 1930s. Hot-tempered and a master of capoeira (Brazilian martial arts), he has several run-ins with authority and eventually emerges from prison, according to the media kit, "as Madame Satã, the transvestite legend of Brazil's urban folklore."

Wow. How can it miss?

It does.

It begins with a lovely female voice crooning "Nuit d'Alger," one of Josephine Baker's hits, and for a moment we think it's João; but he's simply in the wings, lip-syncing to Vitoria dos Anjos (Renata Sorrah), the diva of the Cabaret Lux, for whom he is a dresser. He has big dreams, of course, but at the moment he's bossed around by Vitoria and her lover, Gregorio (Floriano Peixoto), the owner of the Lux, who hasn't paid him in two months. Meekly he accepts this role.

Movie review ** "Madame Satã," with Lázaro Ramos, Marcelia Cartaxo, Emiliano Queiroz. Written and directed by Karim Aïnouz. 105 minutes. Not rated; suitable for mature audiences (contains graphic sex and violence). In Portuguese with English subtitles. Varsity.

But after work, in fedora and jacket, he glides outside (and Ramos knows how to glide) and hops onto a bus, where, among the dead eyes of his fellow commuters, his eyes brim with a kind of walled-in excitement. As a viewer, one is ready to follow these eyes almost anywhere.

Slave in the Cabaret Lux, João is master in the Lapa district. His surrogate family includes the female prostitute Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo), her baby, Firmina, and the annoyingly helpless male prostitute Taboo (Flavio Bauraqui), for whom João acts as pimp. He also begins a tempestuous and baffling love affair with the handsome Renatinho (Felipe Marques).

Slowly, then quickly, João begins to unravel his world. When Vitoria pushes him too far, he pushes back. When Gregorio refuses to pay him, he pulls a knife. With Taboo he scams the rich white folks who sniff around Lapa for illicit sex. The police finally come for him, but it's on trumped-up charges by Vitoria and Gregorio, and João escapes. The next time we see him he's been on the lam for six months, and his legend is growing.

But we never sense his legend growing. The camera stays on him, almost claustrophobically, and increasingly he and his family grow tiresome. Their highs are too high, their lows too low. "I want to get straightened out," he tells Laurita. "You were born bent," she replies.

He's got a self-destructive rage in him like boxer Jake LaMotta, he wants to sing like Josephine Baker, and he's on the lam like Butch and Sundance. Shouldn't this be more interesting? It's as if writer-director Karim Aïnouz has focused on the least-fascinating aspects of a fascinating life.

Ramos, as João, is a live wire — you feel you could get electrocuted just touching him — while the cinematography by Walter Carvalho is gritty (as befits a real story), and with deep, glamorous shadows (as befits an urban legend). Black and white bodies intermingle and recall the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe; a simple scene on the beach, with grains of sand clinging to João, haunts the imagination with its beauty.

But all for naught. "Madame Satã" is a myopic, histrionic picture that never lets us know why this legendary character is legendary, and worthy of our attention.

Erik Lundegaard: elundegaard@earthlink.net