Movie Review

Directed by Starring: Antonio Fegundes (Deus), Wagner Moura, (Echvaltercio/ Tauca), Paloma Duarte (Mada), Bruce Gomlevsky (Quinco, Director, Carlos Diegues,(Portuguese with English subtitles), 110 minutes, 2005.

That God is Brazilian may come as something of a surprise to John Denver who thinks He looks like George Burns (Oh God!) or Jim Carey who thinks He looks like Morgan Freeman (Bruce Almighty) Well, I guess Denver actually knows by now! In all these movies God appears to a hapless guy who usually misunderstands the relationship and becomes a foil for the true revelation of what God is like. This story is in that genre but is amusing and enlightening as God and His fellow travelers deliver some great lines about belief, life and faith. The theological position of the early characters in the story is summed up by Tauca's father, " God is like the wheel, the steamboat and the airplane. He was invented by man but that doesn't mean He doesn't exist".

As a Brazilian, God suddenly appears to Tauca who is trying to escape the clutches of a gangster to whom he owes money. God, it turns out is looking for a saint to whom he could turn over the universe for a short time so that He could take a little vacation and escape the pressures of dealing with humankind. "Interstellar space, galaxies, suns, planets in their courses…" are no problem. It is high maintenance human kind that causes stress and wears God out with all their petitions! He has a particular guy in mind, Quinca of the Mules (his father was a mule driver). He has heard that Quinca has done some generous and self-sacrificing things, so he sets out on a journey to find him and make the proposition that he become a saint.

The story becomes a 'road trip movie' because Quinca keeps moving on from one area of social justice agitation to another! After the first stop they are accompanied by Mada whom they meet at a funeral for her brother. She wants to go to Sao Paulo to try and find her mother who has become a street walker. They have no money and are forced to scrounge. Their actions are at the edge of morality in service of a higher purpose. Mada steals a truck, God does magic tricks for a crowd ("Magic is not a miracle."), Tauca collects for a fake charity.

When they finally find Quinca he is not interested in the job of saint and protests that he is an atheist. He doesn't believe in God, even when God does a variety of tricks to demonstrate His identity. None of them is convincing, whether it involves making the sun stand still in the sky (cf. Joshua, a relatively simple trick) or almost drowning Quinca (it just makes him mad). The humble social justice seeking atheist who has spent his life in the service of others cannot be persuaded, even by God, to become a saint! Ironies abound.

In the end, God is defeated in His quest and has to take up His role as Creator again without a vacation. Along the way much Incarnational Theology is talked and God reinforces the notion that we are each responsible for life in the here and now and no special pleading gets us anywhere with God.

There are several good quotes about life and love. "Why do people only see the value of something after losing it?"
"Human kind learned from God how to create…and God learned from human kind how to love".

There is a Process Theology theme that runs through the conversations of Deus, Tauca and Mada that God was lonely after the marvelous work of creation and made human beings for relationship and amusement and maybe to show off to. In fact, God acts bemused, amused and testy in the face of human folly and self-seeking. You will enjoy this Brazilian.