AoRedordoBrasil

In 1917, director Major Luiz Thomaz Reis travels with his associate, Marshall Cândido Mariano Rondon through the Center-West and North of Brazil, being the official cinematographer of the expedition."Ao Redor do Brasil" is a footage with the fragments of three films of Major Reis.In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the concept of national integration was unknown in Brazil. With the formation of the Rondon Commission, Major Reis became the official cinematographer of the commission, and through his images, he searched for the knowledge of the Brazilian lands and people (the Indians). His shootings are amazing, considering the limitations of the equipment in that time. Major Reis became director, photographer and editor, being 100% responsible for his productions. He learned how to make cinema in Paris, but developed and adapted his own equipment for his needs, having a great concern with technology, technique, adaptation and aesthetic. He developed his own strategy of filming, which was based on the respect for the object, trying to understand the Indian culture, shooting the common Indian, and not the tribal chief. The jungle was the landscape, the scenario only, not the subject, and Major Reis is considered by the expertise, the first great interpreter of the Brazilian reality. Only this movie, indeed a compilation of three others, and"Rituais e Festas Borôro (1917)" survived to time, and these rare films are only available in the Cinematec of MAM (Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro). He died in 1940, when a wall felt on him during a shooting. As a final remark, Hector Babenco's"At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991)" has a scene identical to Major Reis"Ao Redor do Brasil", with the canoe on the river.