ABSTRACT
The 1974 film Iracema, uma transa amazônica, directed by Brazil’s Jorge Bodanzky and Orlando Senna, combines elements of both documentary and fiction. It tells the story of an indigenous teenage girl who becomes a prostitute and accepts a ride along the Transamazonian Highway from a truck driver who calls himself Tião Brasil Grande (Sebastian Big Brazil). Although actors play the roles of Iracema and Tião, their travels along the highway reveal the truth behind the Brazilian government’s own touting of its project to bring development to the Amazon. This occurs in the form of interviews with the area’s inhabitants, who harshly criticize the role that the Transamazonian Highway and its attendant plan of land redistribution has played in their lives. While the camera work and editing also suggest the visual style of documentary, the characterization and storyline make numerous references to literary and filmic motifs, in particular the romantic novel Iracema, lenda do Ceará (1865) by José de Alencar, which expresses a nationalism that Bodanzky and Senna subvert throughout the film. The result calls into question, not only the Brazilian government’s propagandizing of its own projects, but also the veracity of the genre of documentary, which is challenged by the extent of intervention on the part of the film’s directors.
