Triste Tropico

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This film is a homage to

Dr. Artur Alves Nogueira

born in 1892 and died in 1946.

We gathered aspects of his activity

in the coastal coffee region

better known as the 'Scorpion Zone'

Where even today traces of his

passage remains in the folk memory.

It was based on oral testimonies and

documents filmed by Dr. Artur himself,

recently released by his widow,

Mrs. Grimanesa Le Petit.

At 20, he goes to Europe

to study medicine at the Sorbonne.

Son of a rich ambassador,

his fate seemed to be

a regular worker.

No remarkable fact suggested

the astonishing career he'd have

after returning to Brazil.

Here, in a few years

he'd become the center of phenomena

and social fanaticism

similar to the Indian messiahs

of the colonial period.

In 1922, when Modern Art Week

broke out in Sao Paolo,

he was just a graduate living in Paris.

His bohemian nature

led him to attend

the artistic avant-garde,

becoming a personal friend and doctor

of Picasso, Aragon, luard,

Max Ernst and Andr Breton.

Andre Breton would

also include his advice

in the Surrealist Manifesto of 1924.

In 1925, he returns to Brazil.

He arrives with European eyes.

Desirous of certain risks in his career

he waives an office in Sao Paolo

and installs himself as a GP

in Rosria do Oeste

and in the turbulent coffee region,

where, of 600 houses,

Fighting against the hostility of

a human and natural environment

he soon becomes famous

as the only surgeon of the region,

under the control of Col. Joo Pinto.

He brings stories from Europe,

cubist prints,

post cards and devices.

The exoticism of his mild manners

gives him a great personal magnetism,

making it easier to make friends

and influence people.

He introduces the movie camera

and for twenty years he records

episodes of daily life.

Some of these movies

are included in this film.

Privately, he considered his job there

a self-flagellation in tropical America.

About the Scorpion Zone...

There's no registry

of all economic units.

According to the Colombo report

there's an odd overlapping

of coffee and sugar cane cycles

with gold mining and cattle.

About 80% of the population migrates

in the harvest season

searching for work.

In the local mythology,

the gods have a migratory feature,

occupying successively

various paradise points.

Col. Joo Pinto

owns 90% of the land

and, in the village, is

the owner of the grocery store,

of the bakery

lottery

pharmacy,

the restaurant

the snooker's house

barber shop

main church

cooperative building

the bank

and dozens of homes.

Dr. Artur began to collect

detailed biographical info

about 74 messiahs of the region.

There were hundreds of movements

of mystical liberation

which reached a quasi-endemic situation.

Land of election, of messiahs

and prophets

between the cabocla population,

they, in the last three centuries,

provoked the migration of entire cities

from one Zone's extreme to another.

The messiahs interpreted omens

and protected men from

the attack of natural elements.

They enchanted the hunt

and distributed magical power

to the needy.

Central Theme:

The search for paradise,

a land without evil.

There, the archaic societies

would recover their lost traditions.

And would attend again

to the creation of living creatures,

of islands and tides,

of solid lands,

of human groups

and their institutions.

In Paradise,

a supernatural currency was running

without heads, or tails.

Money

I want money.

Dr. Artur, very early

would begin to suffer

physical and mental mutations,

leaving the world of work

he had built so slowly.

But first, let's examine his daily life.

He made a point of eating

like the natives.

Having for lunch two crabs,

turtle muscles and eggs,

roasted lizard,

Macajuba coconuts,

half-rotten buriti fruit,

served with a tasty mush of locusts.

At municipal parties

Dr. Artur had to get used to

eating the human meat of the enemies,

who, before dying, were required to say

"I, your food, am coming"

Human meat was sweet and soft.

The natives didn't have

in their language:

F:

L:

R:

So, they couldn't understand the terms

The Faith

The Law

and Royalty

Women gave birth alternately

to children and small animals.

He was at his creative peak.

In a small pharmaceutical lab

he modified the formulae of drugs

adapting them to local conditions.

The Precious Dye

the Oriental Tonic

the specific 'Fatty'

Bristol Pills

English Water

Celestial Balsam and

Capivarol, the most famous.

He read from Aristotle and

the commentaries on the Koran

to the Revue de Mdicine Tropicale

He synthesized the famous

pills of Dr. Artur

of multifunctional activity:

Digestive, calming, purgative, laxative

and antiphlogistic.

One day, the idea of an almanac comes

to edit a copy of an almanac

like Bristol or Capivarol

about the Dr. Artur Pills

The rancher Joo Pinto,

business partner

ensures the production, distribution

and continuity of the work.

His grandson had been cured

by the pills.

An archive of letters from ordinary folk

about the cures.

For example:

It is fulfilling duty and gratitude

that I come to bring

to your Lordship this knowledge.

I suffered horribly for nine months,

severe pains in the stomach and chest,

even to the point

of having a consultation

for an operation.

Already exhausted,

physically and financially,

I let everything run to chance.

One day,

reading in the almanacs

of this wonderful product,

I decided to try it.

The results were astounding.

Another typical letter:

I must tell you,

in the whole world

there's no other drug so prodigious,

and I swear,

anytime, if required,

that the Dr. Artur Pills

are made by a holy miracle.

I'll always be

an admirer and propagandist.

Another letter:

Due to the overwork

that my job requires from me

I was struck by

a general weakness so profound

that I thought death was at hand,

making me crazy, without hope,

etc, etc, etc and etc

Dr. Artur Hyper-Medicalized

the Scorpion Zone,

which involved him in

a mesh of conspiracies

aiming to de-medicalize it.

In the Scorpion Zone,

everything is quicksand.

He collaborated in

the violent newspapers of the Zone

'The Mirror of Justice'

'The Voice of Reason'

'Letters to the People'

'The Two Liberal Buddies'

'Dr. Bloodhound'

'Nurse of the Nutters'

'The New Censor'

and 'The Rocket'

Some of them in the Tupi language.

There is little information about

his marriage to Grimanesa Le Petit

or, rather,

which obscure alliance

Dr. Artur wanted to make?

Led by her,

he founded a rich girls' school

Whose ad said:

"We teach English,

French and good manners.

Further:

to make fabric flowers,

bead work,

candlestick supports,

sewing for both sexes.

As well as to play the piano

and pan pipe of 13 pipes.

The pupils will have

their hearts nourished

by love and virtue

so that they can dictate

the day of their parenthood.

Dr. Artur was happy,

felt himself an innovator,

but unknown forces began to sabotage

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