Two Sons of Francisco

A farmer in rural Goiás decides his sons will be musicians. He never learned to play himself; at the first opportunity he buys two accordions and enters the boys in competitions from town to town. The family is poor, the land is not enough, and the father will not let the idea go. Then one of the brothers dies in an accident and everything stops. The subject is not success but the weight the father's insistence puts on the family. The film shows that insistence as both love and stubbornness; the mother's objections form the second strand and there are places where she is proved right. The form is classical and emotional. The narration is chronological, the musical sequences are held long and the rural landscape is given in wide frames. The source is real: the film is about the childhood of one of Brazil's best-selling duos, Zezé di Camargo and Luciano, who contributed music to it. It was among the most watched domestic films in Brazil at the time and was submitted as the country's Oscar entry. Ângelo Antônio plays the father and Dira Paes the mother. Breno Silveira directs. Who it is for: viewers who like musicians' biographies and family drama. Who it is not for: anyone bothered by frequent emotional prompting; the film does it openly and often.