Jeff Arnold’s West

The blog of a Western fan, for other Western fans

O Matador aka The Killer (Netflix, 2017)

 

Brazilian gorefest

 

O Matador, also known as The Killer, not to be confused with John Woo’s 1989 picture, is a new Brazilian Western available on Netflix.
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It goes for a South American vibe with much dependence on story telling. A young father in the 1940s tells a tale to two gunmen he meets about a professional killer in Pernambuco State in 1910. Readers of Gabriel García Márquez or Jorge Borges might enjoy it. Also those who like gore.
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Everyone is vile
 
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It’s one of those movies that is difficult to ‘like’ because absolutely everyone in it is extremely unpleasant. There is a whole series of hired killers who brutally dispatch their victims. Most of these assassins are destroyed in their turn and we do not mourn them.

 

 

There’s a corrupt rancher who wants the whole valley – one of the most tried-and-tested Western plots. He is a Frenchman, Monsieur Blanchard (Etienne Chicot). As no one around understands French, M Blanchard has a deaf-mute interpreter. Yes, I know.  Madame Blanchard is a former brothel keeper only interested in pleasure and they have a degenerate and revolting son, Pierre – not sure who the actors were.
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Father and adopted son/apprentice
 
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There are mystical pebbles which everyone seeks and which act as currency, a metaphor, I guess.

 

 

The picture was directed and written by Marcelo Galvão (below), his only Western. It’s visually fine, with beautiful photography by Fabricio Tadeu of, I suppose, Brazilian locations. It won the Best Cinematography (Melhor Fotografia) award at the Gramado Film Festival this year, which doubtless you attended.
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The opening titles have a definite comic-book or graphic-novel tinge to them and this idea is carried through the whole movie.

 

 

I watched it, and certainly was not bored.
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 Nice photography
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6 Responses

  1. What I have found on a brazilian web site :
    Música: Cirus, Alexandre
    Direção musical: Cortez, Edmundo Villani

    Dados adicionais de música
    Título da música: Matador, O
    Intérprete(s): Lona, Fernando e Trio Soma 3

    Hope it helps…

    Beside of this first netflix brazilian film, there is a very famous "western" located in the brazilian nordeste called O Cangaceiro, a big hit in the blessed year of 1953, a revelation at the Cannes festival, also famous through its haunting music, a ballad covered up by Joan Baez. I remember a very nice black and white photography too. No doubt that Jeff will look after it soon. JM

  2. The song being played right before the blond devil cuts of man’s tongue who is that and what is song called

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