Lo and behold, here is one of the best films we've screened in MCP's forays into international noir: ASSAULT ON THE PAY TRAIN (1962), from Brazil, directed by Roberto Farias. It is a heist film, but also much, much more: one is tempted to call it the first example of "favela noir" as manifested in the film's dissection of wealth and poverty, class and race (specific all the way down to a sociobiological dimension: genus, species, subtype). As always, the lack of working-class solidarity puts the liberating impulse of crime committed in the name of "reparation for decades of corruption" into immediate peril.
We were immensely proud/honored to show it at A RARE NOIR IS GOOD TO FIND 1 back in 2015, and we might sneak another screening in before Eddie M., who's been tipped to this film's existence, can jump through all the "official hoops" to get it back in front of a wider audience. We hope he is able to do so, as the film deserves a high place of honor in the pantheon of international noir, a genre that often transcends those dreaded "genre expectations." That quality will leap out at you even watching it via YouTube.
|