O Quatrilho: An Immigrant’s Story
Read it on my blog here!
Synopsis
O Quatrilho (1995) takes place in Rio Grande do Sul in the 1910s and follows two Italian immigrant couples, Teresa and Angelo, and Massimo and Pierina. Upon meeting, Massimo and Angelo decide to work together and soon Teresa and Massimo fall in love. When the two leave, Angelo and Pierina must learn to live without them and realize that their best chance at happiness is with each other.
Though Brazilian Cinema Novo of the 1960s revolutionized filmmaking and philosophy for many directors in and outside of Brazil, it failed to create a stable and consistent film industry in the country. The Brazilian film industry was restricted by its dependence on state financing and subsequent censorship during its military dictatorship. The situation was not helped even with the election of Brazil’s first democratic president, Fernando Collor de Mello, who shut down several cultural public institutions including Embrafilme, the state production company, in 1990. However, in the mid-90s, President Itamar Franco created the Brazilian Cinema Rescue Award and passed the Rouanet Law which offered a tax credit for investments in culture. And so, Brazilian cinema was reborn with movies like Central Station and later City of God. While these films seem to create a very clear portrait and message for modern Brazil, one of the first movies in this run of international success, O Quatrilho, focuses not on the landscape of contemporary Brazil but on Italian immigrants making their way in Rio Grande do Sul in 1910. Why this story? Considering the ways Italian immigrants reinvented themselves and the land, it’s only natural that their story be the one to reinvent the nation’s cinema.
Mass European immigration (other than Portuguese) began in the late 1800s for a few key reasons. One of the main reasons was that the country was the last to make slavery illegal in 1888 and in order to replace the unpaid African workforce, the country would have to look elsewhere. It was also crucial at this time to create a white nation, not a mixed one. At first, large swaths of Swiss and German immigrants came to the country and created their own colonies. But due to the Italian Reunification War driving millions out, Italians would become the major immigrant demographic of the country. Brazil received a large number of northern Italians as the initiative to industrialize the north after the war affected the jobs of many northern farmers. The northern immigrants were divided into two groups. The first type were those that went to work for plantation farmers long enough to earn money, buy land, and swiftly integrate into Brazilian society. The second group were those that settled in the only land left that had not yet been occupied by Portuguese or German immigrants. This virgin land would be turned into cities and farmland that still flourish in Brazil to this day. Even now, many Brazilians speak or know Talian, a Venetian Portuguese dialect.
Based on the novel of the same name by Italian Brazilian author Jose Clemente Pozenato and filmed with a predominantly Italian Brazilian cast and crew, this Academy Award-nominated film represents the fruits of those early immigrants’ labor. The two respective couples, Teresa and Angelo, and Massimo and Pierina, live in isolated, forested communities, totally abandoned by the Italian and Brazilian governments. In this wilderness, they have to come to terms with who they are and what their purpose is. The idea of being “Brazilian” is only slightly newer than the idea of being “Italian” after so many years of being Venetian, Genovese, Ligurian, etc. The same goes for their identity as a wife or a husband. They will have to find a way to live inside a kind of hyphenate or outside these categorizations entirely.
At the beginning of the film, both couples seemed to be boxed into these immovable identities in both marriage and culture. In the first scene, we see Teresa and Angelo’s marriage ceremony and the priest, rather than reminding them of the wonderful life they have ahead of them, takes the time to reiterate the duty they have to God. Outside the church, the priest even laments this hard stance, saying that he is always sad on wedding days because he knows that the spark in the eyes of these young, adoring couples will soon leave. The tug of war between their duty and their fate is front and center. The stern old Italian aunt counsels Teresa about what kind of wife she should be. Meanwhile, Massimo, who first settled in Buenos Aires hoping to make a large amount of money has come to terms with the fact that he will not be able to be the kind of breadwinner he wants to be without exploiting someone. As he puts it, the only two ways to become rich are to be born so or marry into it.
Though the film seems to set up a story about the inherent downfalls of monogamy and conservative society, the film doesn’t go so far. At its heart, it is a somewhat conservative moral tale that allows its characters the freedom to rebel and then re-enter their world on their own terms. The affair between Massimo and Teresa is not an immoral act but a necessary one that comes about naturally. After one of Teresa’s first interactions with Massimo, she blushes and everyone laughs, assuming it is because of her husband who is sitting beside him. When Massimo and Teresa first consummate their love, it is unknowingly at the behest of his wife Pierina who says that since Massimo wants to go to the river so badly and she and Angelo are busy, he should simply take Teresa. Without the knowledge that Teresa and Massimo are married to other people, the pairings between the more adventurous Teresa and Massimo as well as the practical Angelo and Pierina seem utterly natural.
Their first times together even echo the inverse of each other. For Massimo and Teresa, it takes place in an open field in the daytime with Massimo making the first move by kissing her hand. For Angelo and Pierina, it takes place in their home at night and begins with Piernina kissing his hand. There are no awkward fumblings, these new pairings fit exactly right. The only lasting blow to traditional society goes to the church. Massimo wonders aloud to Teresa if marriage was invented by priests leading Teresa to remark that marriage is one thing and love is another. It is this institution that keeps these upstanding people from happiness. After Massimo and Teresa leave and Angelo and Pierina fall in love, the priest makes the town blacklist the couple, leading Pierina to come into the church and declare that there is a hell for priests too.
But by the end, the couples are where they always were supposed to be. They have a happy marriage, albeit without the Church’s blessing, financial security, and plenty of kids. The movie’s morality does not come from the Church but rather from the card game of the same name. In Quatrilho, you have to betray your partner in order to win. It’s why Teresa and Massimo face no punishment for their affair and are allowed to live a long and happy life. In the final moments of the film, we see that Pierina and Angelo have also moved away to Caxias, an Italian-Brazilian city, and are thriving. Pierina receives a letter from Teresa apologizing for how everything happened and encloses a family photo. Pierina confirms she has no hard feelings and she and Angelo pose for a family photo. The camera cuts to Teresa and Massimo doing the same thing. Out of uninhabited land, these immigrants have made cities and out of barren marriages, they have found love.
