The Rogue's Trial

The Rogue's Trial (2024) is the sequel, twenty four years later, to one of Brazil's most loved films, and it comes from a play by Ariano Suassuna. João Grilo returns to Taperoá after twenty years missing and finds his old friend Chicó. When the story that he died and came back spreads through the town, the two most powerful politicians in it start fighting over which of them gets to run him as a candidate. Suassuna's writing comes out of the storytelling tradition of Brazil's northeast: the cunning poor man, the arrogant rich, saints and the devil sharing a scene. The film keeps that register. It makes jokes about religion, death and politics without any of it reading as contempt. Matheus Nachtergaele and Selton Mello return to their roles from the first film, and the twenty four years sit visibly on the characters. In Brazil the 2000 original is close to national memory, so expectations for a sequel were enormous and the response was split. It can be watched without the first, but you lose half of what it does. It runs 112 minutes. Good for: Brazilian cinema, absurdist comedy, and folk storytelling. Less good for: the humour is very local, some jokes do not survive subtitling, and anyone who knows the original will spend the film comparing.