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Has anyone here seen Besouro (The Assailant), a movie about copoeira? After viewing I was quite dissapointed. I think it was complete trash, if you havn’t seen copoeira on screen I would suggest skipping this film. While it does have a decent cinematic potrayal of Orishas…it also portrays typical anti-Afrikan propoganda such as (MILD SPOILERS):
Black men (the protagonist at that) abusing black women
Black men failing to protect black women and black community
Characters with the pathetic “we ain’t nothin without massa” themes being rewarded
and of a course blacks lose at the end where the antagonist/crakka “wins” in the sense of continuing their oppresive industries.
I would be interested in hearing others thoughts.15 Comments-
If looking for a decent black action flick I would sugest “The Last Dragon”, which is the reverse of said critics mentioned above
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The movie was posted on here a while back. On a macro level I understand what you’re saying, but on a micro level, the film has some hidden gems.
– Being Black and proud
-The art of Capoeira, which is not about learning everything from your Master, but taking the fundamentals and mastering your body, mind, and soul.
– The beetle concept
-Being at the crossroads and Eshu challenging you
– Standing on the shoulders of your eldersThere are many more lessons from that movie. Also, it’s not the best to have a happy ending because it’s a poor representation of reality. Sometimes it’s ok to have a sad ending so people can leave determined to change our conditions. Happy ending at times can skew reality, i.e., Black Panther, many people left the theatres believing we had a Wakanda somewhere. The movie made them feel good, but in fact, we don’t have a nation like that.
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We will have to agree to disagree, I think the purpose of Afrikan films should be to inspire an imagination of defeating our enemies not losing to them, black love being rewarding and “romantic” (I’m talking emotional connotation not etymalogically) not abusive and powerless. We recieve a flood of images of us being defeated, why craft our fiction as such?
If I could I would erase the movie from my mind because involuntarely (happening rather I want to or not) the viewers mind will contribute the practice Afrikan spirituality and combat as being incappable of overcoming oppretion, which dosn’t match reality or what I would consider a good black movie..User Maat Ra in KMT, Jean Jaques Dessaline in Haiti, Kojo of the Maroons, Robert F Williams in the U.S. kwk.
The film forces the mind to consider us and our culture as a losing/inferior one. For that and many other reasons, I think it’s trash. I would like to hear what folk think a good Afrikan action flick should entail.
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besuro was marketed as a historical drama focused on the biography of the capoeira fighter from Bahia, named Manuel Henrique Pereira. Seeing as it is a hisotrical drama, i imagine they wanted to maintain the same elements during said period of the early 1920’s.
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@Tenkamenin we already had a “wakanda” our ancient Kmt, the best of the best where people came to learn at our mystery schools. we did it once and we gonna do it again.
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If giving our most advanced civilizations power, resources, and technology to foreigners (United Nations) is considered winning then we might have to revisit the mistakes we made in KMT . Cite: Detruction of Black Civilization. I don’t want to get on too much of a tangent here but that movie was good propaganda for our enemies for sure.
Themes: Good (T’Challa) sacrificing your own people to enrich the lives of enemy Eurasians(U.N.) who killed your father and enslaved your race
Bad (Killmonger) Using Afrikan technology and spirituality to protect your race and eliminate the problem “euasians”
Obvisously they portrayed Killmonger as uncontrobly destructive to add negative connotations to the philosophy of putting race first.
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@SankofaMA’AT the last dragon promotes , the Asian stuff,
Mestre Bimba, A Capoeira Illuminada (2005)-
@Intwinaka Yes the asian themes I don’t endorse but in terms of film it’s probably one of the best Afrikan action flicks I’ve seen because the brother defeats the crakka, the negro, and protects his family+ his beloved, ultimetletly becomeing a master himself. The themes of Afrikans winning and having a protective and romantic (connotation not etymologically) relationship with his woman makes it a better film then Besuro imo. If our combat and spirituals aren’t depected as a winning formula I rather not have/see them on screen at all, that does more harm then good neurologically speaking.
I didn’t know of Manuel Henrique Pereira until now, I’ll have to look him up. Did he die in battle historically? Regardless I would prefer for a copoeira film to depict using the power of our combat and spiritual system to win, the scene where Besuro is charging towards the crakkas n negros would have been so much better if he summoned the powers of Exu to kill every single last one of em, though I understand if that is historically inaccurate but then again flying through the air n transfering conciousness to beetles+frogs (possibly real?) prolly wasn’t true to reality neither.
I guess I’ll just have to become a billionaire and have some of the folks from the group here make our own copoeira action film….I’ll definetly check out A Copoeira Illuminada though
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@SankofaMAAT you comparing two different themes, in two different periods.
the 1920’s and the late 80’s. seeing as that was a biography of the M. Pereira, they had to stay within the context of that period which was not agreeable at all for Afrikans.
As for the beetle, that is symbolic of Khepri, (you’ll need to look that up) along with the last scenes which the boy looks at the pale faced and stares at him. That too, is also symbolic.
You’ll have to do some reading on Khepri to get those last scenes of the film.-
@Intiwinaka I understand the symbolisms, well as much as one can without speaking Mdw NTR (Khepra, reincarnation/ ressurection as lotus flower grows from the beetles perfectly eastword rolling dungball). The symbolisms in the film in themselves were great, but given the losing context of the film are quite bad, and prime/involunterely force the association of Afrikan culture with losing and failure.
The power of symbolism traverse time, in comparing Besuro with the Last Dragon the protagonist in one wins and the other loses, one is a womenizer by my definition the other a feirce romantic.
I think what this really means brother Inwinaka is we gotta get our monies together (currently broke but in the future lol) and our produce our own film, What would that look like to you? Lets make it happen!
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what aspects of a warrior can you pull from Besuro?
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Warrior Manuel Henrique Pereira (Besuro) aligned himself with the forces of nature (Orishas), granting him superhuman like abilities. Particullary insteresting was the bowing to Exu, who was considered evil. For me this shows that nature dosn’t take sides like eurasian miseducation has tought me (standard good v. evil mentality).
To be a sucessful warrior one must align themselves with all aspects of nature however “evil” they may appear. In doing so body, mind, and spirit can become one enabling a Afrikan warriors true power insuring victory. While Pereira may have died in one form he lived on in the afterlife as Besuro (his son), able to once again defeat the enemies he cfailed to in the previous lifetime.In short: the crakka is in a losing battle against nature, align myself with nature and they’ll be in a losing battle against me (ancestors reincarnate) as well.
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@Intwinaka, I meant to say “have” and not “had”
Sankofa, yes we can agree to disagree.
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Abibisika (Black Gold) Points
Besouro was the inspiration for this thread about movies where Afrikan=Black people win in the end:
https://www.abibitumi.com/community/movies/list-of-movies-where-afrikan-black-people-win-in-the-end/-
I watched Besouro on You-tube. I was totally inspired by that film. We need more of that. Unfortunately many of us have become so dependent on Yurugu that we expect them to make movies about us winning and complain when they don’t.
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