VIFF Review: The Man Who Bottled Clouds

The Man Who Bottled Clouds
Granville 7 Theatre 4
Sunday, October 4 2009 11:40am

This documentary about Brazilian musician Humberto Teixeira was produced and narrated by his daughter Denise Dummont. Even though he raised her she never felt she knew her father as a person and sets out to learn who he was by interviewing his friends, family, and colleagues in Brazil and New York Ciy.

Most of the musicians are unfamiliar to non-Brazilians but notably recognizable are Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Chico Buarque, David Byrne, Bebel Gilberto, and Maria Bethânia. They speak of Teixeira in respectful tones but it is the interviews with his first wife (Denise's mother), and Denise herself which are the most revealing about his character.

Extensive historic footage is used to invoke 1930-50s Brazil. Even the contemporary scenes have a vintage feel as they are shot on old film stock. It is a pivotal time in the industrialization of Brazil with its attendant social upheavals. Northeasterners are streaming into the cities like Rio De Janeiro to escape the drought and build a better life. They bring with them their native culture.

Humberto Teixeira is one of these migrants from the town of Iguatu in the rural state of Ceará. Little is mentioned of his early life but he did study medicine before switching to law and becoming a lawyer. Teixeira had limited success in music until he teamed up with fellow Northeasterner Luiz Gonzaga to bring their adaptation of Northeastern baião music to the South. Gonzaga would become the better known singing cowboy front man, but songwriter Teixeira would become the Doctor of Baião.

Baião swept post-war Brazil and dominated popular music until the late 1950s. The lyrics romanticizing country life had great appeal to the many migrants homesick for their Northern lands. It directly influenced the up and coming Bossa Nova musicians, and spread outside Brazil to influence forms as diverse as Jamaican reggae and Carmen Miranda musicals.

There are many performances of Teixeira's songs by many Brazilian musicians. A highlight is a performance of Asa Branca by David Byrne dressed in Brazilian cowboy gear.

The film is an interesting look at a musical form which is largely overshadowed outside of Brazil by the later Bossa Nova movement. Once again, the importance of the culture of Brazil's rural Northeast on the rest of the country is highlighted. The Brazilian brain may lie in the South but its heart is in the North.

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