Foreign Land? (1995, Dirs. Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas)

Foreign Land is about studying where you are from and where you are going to. And it goes back to the fatherland that abandoned us Brazilians. The Portuguese that discovered us took out everything that they wanted to. The silver, the gold. Even the name, Brazil comes from a tree that you can’t find in Brazil anymore because it was all taken and brought over to Europe. So it was really about that, studying where we are from and then getting back to the father who had kind of abandoned us. (Walter Salles)

Foreign Land (1995), a beautifully photographed black and white Brazilian mystery, chronicles the union between Paco (Fernando Alves Pinto), an aspiring actor living in Sao Paulo, and Brazil-born Alex (Fernanda Torres), who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal. Much of the tale is set in 1990 when Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello threw his country into an economic tailspin by suddenly confiscating the savings accounts of the entire population. At this time, Paco is living with his elderly mother in a poor Sao Paulo neighborhood. Tired of living in squalor, the mother dreams of returning to her native Spain. When she learns that her savings have been seized, the shocked old woman drops dead. Now without his mother, Paco feels little desire to stay in Brazil and so meets with the sleazy Igor, an antique dealer, and agrees to smuggle a violin stuffed with raw diamonds to Lisbon. Paco is to take the fiddle to a certain hotel where he will be paid by the contact. Unfortunately, he arrives, but the contact doesn't. This incident leads him down a twisted road filled with murder, danger and intrigue that eventually ends in the arms of Alex. In many films, this would be the end of the story, but not for Alex and Paco, for they cannot relax and enjoy their relationship unless they can somehow escape the murderous thugs Igor sent to kill them.

The film, then, recollects a film noir narrative and setting, not only because of its black and white cinematography, a setting that is meticulously staged, from the interior and exterior mise-en-scene with its low-key lighting and stereotypical noir figures like the detective, the femme fatale and the hero/victim to the low angle deep focus camera shots so prevalent in film noir since Citizen Kane (1941) As in film noir, the most prominent characters in Foreign Land reflect a nearly hopeless world: the displaced hero/victim and the femme fatale, for example.

It is style, however, that sets film noir apart from earlier detective films. Stylistically, the film acts as homage to noir. Shooting styles draw on those perfected in Citizen Kane, which Andrew Sarris sees as one of the first and most influential noirs, calling it one of the “two-pronged noir breakthrough[s]” (104). Low-key lighting, extreme camera angles, deep focus, wide-angle lenses, and depth of field are all drawn from Kane and the later noir films it inspired. The arched rooms and hallways shot from low angle camera positions recall Gregg Toland’s cinematography in Citizen Kane’s varied locations. And the figures, buildings and interior props are dramatically illuminated to maximize cast and attached shadows, including those figures shot in silhouette. Noirs are shot mostly at night in a decaying urban milieu. Many scenes are shot from low angle camera positions to further set the mood with wide-angle lenses that increase depth of field. Many of these techniques are drawn from German Expressionism, emphasizing the chaotic world in which trapped characters seek meaning. Foreign Land’s city settings fulfill all aspects of this description of film noir.

The city duplicates the urban noir atmosphere with its dank, dark and decrepit streets and buildings and sleazy interior hotel rooms and nightclubs. Noir figures abound in this urban setting, beginning with Paco, the mentally and physically displaced hero/victim in search of salvation and self-realization. Women figures, too, take on the noir roles, as does Alex (Fernanda Torres), who serves as both femme fatale and virtuous virgin. Sound, too, in this cityscape, brings to mind noirs like Fury (1936), Kiss of Death (1947), Out of the Past (1947), They Live By Night (1948), and Gun Crazy (1949). Characters’ speech patterns follow those of noir figures, since their reactions to horrific events are almost emotionless. Nightclub music, too, harks back to 1940s and early ‘50s jazz. Background effects sound hollow and muted, as if heard through penetrating thick fogs and continuous rains.

Foreign Land’s cityscape and the narrative surrounding it most resemble that of films

 like On Dangerous Ground (1952), a Nicholas Ray film in which Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan) finds solace in the rural hills, away from the decaying noir urban setting he escapes. Because Wilson, a hardboiled police detective, has become embittered by his dealings with the heartless criminals of the urban underworld, he begins beating his suspects and is sent away from the city to the “country” to pursue a young girl’s killer and curb his violence. In this idyllic pastoral setting, Wilson gains self-awareness, with the help of Mary (Ida Lupino), the murderer’s blind sister, and frees himself of his own rage. Urban shots in the film maintain Wilson’s cynicism and desperation, but gradually, as his view of the world changes, rural shots brighten, suggesting that Wilson’s own blindness about himself has lifted.

Like Jim Wilson, Paco seeks to escape the decay of the city and the empty seediness of his role there and find solace in San Sebastian, his dead mother’s home. Like many characters in film noir, Murdoch feels trapped by forces beyond his control, in this case literally trapped by the role of “mule” forced upon him after his mother’s death. Devoid of a clear sense of self, Paco, like Wilson, frantically battles the city and its underworld while searching for salvation outside the city and its corruption. As in On Dangerous Ground, a virtuous woman contributes to the salvation Paco seeks, a pastoral solution to the corruption associated with a hopeless urban world in both Brazil and Portugal settings, a solution that also, perhaps, calls for an ecocritical reading of its space.