Zuzu Angel (Sergio Rezende, 2006, Brazil)

Zuzu Angel (Zuleika Angel Jones) was a Brazilian fashion designer who resided in Rio de Janeiro during the 1970s dictatorship and whose son Stuart (nicknamed Paolo by his fellow friends and "revolutionaries"), a student and socialist, joined the opposition, was taken, tortured and eventually killed by the military intelligence operations DOI-CODI. The film Zuzu Angel is based on the true story of the mother going lengths to investigate the reality behind her son's death, moving closer and closer to the truth and at the end was assassinated by members of the military regime in 1976.

A political film based on the personality of Zuzu Angel and set against the backdrop of the 1970s dictatorship, this film is a refreshing look at history, particularly significant amid the ghetto violence and gangster elements that figure in what have come to define a major part of current Brazilian cinema, especially in its overseas reception. The film's narrative is straight-forward and unequivocally sympathetic to Zuzu Angel and Stuart Angel Jones, and contemptuous towards the military dictatorship. Early on the officers at the prison are portrayed as uncooperative and lazy and refuse to find out where Stuart is imprisoned. As Zuzu Angel visits the other prisons of the air force and the navy, the officers show no sympathy and are more interested in inducing Zuzu to admit Stuart's communistic tendencies. It is one woman, occasionally supported by her lawyer, against the omnipresent dictatorship that betrays its brutality and violence through the secret intelligence agents.

Mid-way through the film one may have wished that it provides more information concerning the extent of the dictatorship and how its oppression has played out on the general population. Stuart and his girlfriend Sonia are essentially the only characters who characterize the opposition, and their ideological or physical involvement in the movement is only momentarily commented upon and never gains enough weight to flesh out the period's history beyond Zuzu Angel's personal tragedy. But it is important to remember that the film is about Zuzu Angel as an individual, and that the narrative's occasionally one-sided perspective does not hurt its otherwise acute but controlled political undertone. The titular theme is handled with balance, continuity and clarity; the emotions of a mother who is not glorified for a false sense of idealism or courage, but driven by the anger of losing her son, are depicted with sensitivity and delivered effectively by Patrícia Pillar. As she strives to uncover the truth, getting even the United States and Amnesty International involved, she places herself in a dangerous position and gradually and unintentionally steps into the shoes of a revolutionary. Her efforts symbolize the opposition and the reality of oppression. That she finally cannot escape the fatal grasp of the military regime and is assassinated, is the fact that heightens the film's emotional poignancy and political immediacy.