Rodrigo Lombardi Embodies Guimarães Rosa Character in “Grande Sertão” Film Adaptation
Three years after portraying Guimarães Rosa in the miniseries “Passport to Freedom,” Rodrigo Lombardi, 47, stars in “Grande Sertão” as one of the characters created by the Brazilian author. The actor takes on the role of Joca Ramiro in Guel Arraes’ reinterpretation of the literary classic. In an interview with CNN, Lombardi discussed the challenge of bridging the understanding of the writer’s text with the interpretation of the director on the work.
“I came from a series where I portrayed Guimarães Rosa in person before writing ‘Grande Sertão: Veredas,’ going through a real episode of Brazil in pre-war Germany. He returns [to the country] after witnessing the horrors of war. The understanding I had was completely different from this Guimarães. It was about the time of thought,” he said.
“Guimarães was a guy who thought a lot before speaking. He spoke very slowly, pausingly, and then arrives on Guel’s set, which is a ‘rock and roll of the backlands,’ and we have his vision of the work,” he explained. “Grande Sertão” premiered in theaters on June 6. Guel Arraes transforms the Brazilian classic into a contemporary story and shows how the issues addressed by the author in 1956 remain relevant.
The screenplay, written by the director from Pernambuco and Jorge Furtado (“Island of Flowers” and “The Man Who Copied”), transposes the universe of the violence of the backlands’ jagunços to the territory of criminal organizations in an urban periphery, surrounded by gigantic walls, in an undetermined time. In order to do justice to Guimarães Rosa’s text, the film makes use of elements from theater and cinema.
The plot is entirely told from Riobaldo’s perspective (Caio Blat), who acts as the narrator. In a dystopian scenario of the Brazilian slum, the story begins in his childhood, when he met Diadorim (Luisa Arraes). Years later, he became a public school teacher caught in the middle of the war between the faction and the police. Amidst a shootout, he reunites with his friend and ends up joining the group to protect him.
The duo has a conflicting relationship, where they desire each other, but Diadorim poses as a man to participate in the war. Confused with his feelings, Riobaldo still promises eternal loyalty to his friend. After an unexpected situation, the pair leads a rebellion.
Other characters that stand out throughout the plot are: Joca Ramiro (Rodrigo Lombardi), the faction leader, and Zé Bebelo (Luís Miranda), the colonel, who are seen either on opposite sides or in communion; and Hermogénes (Eduardo Sterblitch), who represents “all the evil in the world.”