| | | The true story about... justice at any price.
Features: DVD, English, Subtitled
A Brazilian journalist Fernando (Pedro Cardoso), his friends CŽzar (Selton Mellon), a seminarian, and Artur (Eduardo Moskovis), an actor, sit in Fernando's apartment one evening discussing their fury and distress over the actions of the military regime. Four years after Brazil's democratic government was overthrown by the military, things have gone from uncertain to unbearable. Cracking down on increasingly vocal students, the government has now instituted complete censorship of all media, a policy allowing anyone considered a political opponent to be arrested and detained without formal charges, and a program of torturing all political prisoners with the most brutal methods known. Looking for a way to end what they see as government-sponsored madness, Fernando and CŽzar announce their plans to enlist in the "October 8th Revolutionary Movement" (MR-8), one of many small urban guerrilla units springing up throughout Brazil. Artur, calling their idea an act of vanity even greater than the vanity of acting, refuses to join in their "suicide mission."
"One of the year's best!" Chicago Tribune
"A riveting thriller!" Los Angeles Times
Editor's Note
A group of Brazilian students kidnap the American ambassador as an act of resistance against their right-wing military government, but the emotional tension soon wears a crack in their starry-eyed idealism. Thoughtful, even-handed direction examines the event from a variety of perspectives. Based on the memoirs of Green Party member Fernando Gabeira. Academy Award Nominations--Best Foreign Film.
| Features | Subtitles: English | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Audio: Portuguese Dolby Digital |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 4/8/2003 |
| Original Release Date: 1997 | | Catalog ID: 29075 | | UPC: 00786936207484 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Portuguese | | Available Audio Tracks: Portuguese | | Available Subtitles: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Los Angeles International Film Festival (1997) |  | Bruno Barreto, Winner, Best Feature Film |
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| | Professional Reviews | USA Today
"...Always compelling..." 02/27/1998 p.9DNew York Times
"...Gripping....Mr. Arkin has some compelling moments..." 01/30/1998 p.E8 Premiere
"...This thought-provoking film explores the doubts and moral ambiguities that plague even the most dogmatic idealists..." 02/01/1998 p.23 Los Angeles Times
"...It's a fascinating slice of political history....In its efforts to feel the pulse of human conscience, as well as the heart, it's dead on..." 01/30/1998 p.C24 San Francisco Chronicle 8 of 10
It's a joy to watch the unpeeling of layers in Four Days In September, the new political thriller from Brazilian director Bruno Barreto (Dona Flor And Her Two Husbands). Barreto's new film is about politics, but more than that it's a character study of absorbing details and incendiary shadings, of identities shedding masks. For moviegoers fed up with supercharged Hollywood assaults on the senses, Four Days In September is a beautiful breather, a thoughtful and evocative diversion. Here, impassioned idealism is hobbled by human vulnerability, and lives are caught up in a searing moment of history. Alan Arkin as a natty American diplomat heads a superb cast that includes Pedro Cardoso and Fernanda Torres as fiery leftists falling in love and Marco Ricca as a dutiful policeman/torturer who can't sleep. They give the film rich humanity... The story recounts the kidnapping in September 1969 of the U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Charles Burke Elbrick (Arkin), by leftist radicals. A small guerrilla group calling itself the "October 8th Revolutionary Movement" used Elbrick as a hostage to deliver a Marxist manifesto and denounce the brutality of Brazil's right-wing military regime. The film, set in Rio de Janeiro, is based on recollections by Brazilian writer and Green Party congressman Fernando Gabeira, who participated in the kidnapping (it was his idea, in fact)... The film seizes on the details. The terrorists nearly blow their plan by ordering so much take-out chicken, [that they raise] a deli owner's suspicions. The police get so jazzed up by sheer machismo that they almost get the ambassador killed. A member of the gang carefully washes the blood out of Elbrick's shirt but can't iron it. The film's pace is measured, but every frame is charged with a rare emotional portrait of people in over their heads and looking for light. - Peter Stack
Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide 8 of 10
Emotion-charged, based-on-fact account of the events surrounding the 1969 kidnapping of an American ambassador (Alan Arkin) by an idealistic yet diverse group of young Brazilian revolutionaries. All sides are given a voice in this empathetic and well-detailed political drama. - Leonard Maltin
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