The Dead Girl's Feast (2008) A Festa da Menina Morta

For every one of the last 20 years, The Dead Girl’s Feast has been celebrated in a small riverside community in the upper part of the Negro River. The occasion commemorates the ingenuous miracle that was performed by THE SAINT, a local boy who, soon after suffering his mother’s suicide, recovered the shredded and bloodstained remains of a missing girl’s dress from the fangs of a stray mongrel. The little girl’s remains were never found, but those of her dress were enshrined to create in The Saint’s humble dwelling a place of worship and pilgrimage. The practices of the cult and the annual feast evolved over the years into a huge enterprise, despite persistent objections from the dead girl’s brother, TADEU. These days, the inhabitants of nearby Amazon villages visit the small town on the holy day to worship, pray and beg, as they anxiously await the girl’s revelations, which are to be channeled by The Saint. The Saint’s FATHER is eager to exploit every opportunity to profit from the event and from his son’s growing reputation in the region, even as he carries out a casually incestuous relationship with his son. The devout AUNTIE lives as a surrogate mother in service to The Saint and keeps her concerns about his private life a secret. The doting and sexy DAS GRAÇAS and the young novice LUCIA do their best to maintain order and decency in the household shrine, which is given to occasional flare ups of madness. On the day of the feast, Tadeu steps back into his role literally propping up the spellbound Saint through the procession to the riverside. A hush goes over the largest gathering ever as The Saint steps up to the microphone to utter the Dead Girl’s annual message.

Matheus Nachtergaele is known as a superb and a most complete actor, and now as he sits behind the cameras in his directorial debut, a good feeling comes out of this experience: we want more! Definitely, the film has some highs and lows, but overall he delivers the message and still wets our appetite for he chooses an excellent story and the perfect landscape that mixes perfectly all plurality of Brazilian's multicultural backgrounds. The images blend water and oil magically; however, one might feel that there could be some exaggerations in some of the acting, and some long pauses in the script, which might slow things down in very few moments. In sum, I believe to be a great debut, and this new director deserves all possible attention now, and I hope, in a brief future as well. Beautiful work Matheus!

IMDB Reviewer

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