The Sign of Chaos

Dr Amnésio, a customs officer, examines the reels of a documentary Orson Welles made about Brazil and tries to seize the material. Then comes a party at which the men of the apparatus of repression celebrate. The film calls that celebration a victory won against freedom and creativity; that wording is the film’s own. The account does not follow a straight story; it arranges its scenes in an order of thought. The confiscated reel is the object at the centre, and the question asked is who has the right to show what. Censorship comes in not only as a subject but as a form. Otávio Terceiro and Helena Ignez appear in Rogério Sganzerla’s eighty minute Brazilian film, completed in 2003.