The Amulet of Ogum

The Amulet of Ogum (1974)

O Amuleto de Ogum

An ubiquitous folk singer narrates the tale of a young boy, who apparently becomes immune to gunfire after his mother arranges for him to have an amulet bearing Ogum's blessings. As time goes by, he becomes a valuable member of a mobster's hit-team, but ends up joining a group of people who resist his original employers.

Date of release
1974-05-21
TMDB
6.4 / 10 (11)
Runtime
1h 52m
Genres
Fantasy, Crime, Drama, Action
Director
Nelson Pereira dos Santos

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

The Amulet of Ogum is a 1974 Brazilian drama film directed and co-written by Nelson Pereira dos Santos. The film, which depicts the life of a young man protected by the rites of umbanda, was shown at international film festivals following its release. It was selected as the Brazilian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 48th Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

Production

After Nelson Pereira dos Santos's return to Brazil in 1973 and the ascendancy of Ernesto Geisel as dictator in 1974, gradual political liberalization led Santos to pursue projects like The Amulet of Ogum. The film was co-produced with the Brazilian state enterprise Embrafilme, based on an earlier script titled O amuleto da morte by Francisco Santos which was heavily rewritten by dos Santos to blend religious elements with the criminal storyline.

The character of Gabriel is deliberately personified as an aspect of Ogum, warrior god of metalworking. Local umbanda pai-de-santo José de Carvalho was consulted on the film's religious aspects, and filming was delayed for a week while appropriate permissions were acquired to film the ritual closing of Gabriel's body. Dos Santos acknowledged the influence of his first wife Laurita, an anthropologist, on the film's treatment of popular religion.

At the time of the film's production, the public practice of umbanda, candomblé, and macumba were legally regulated by the military dictatorship in Brazil. However, government censors only required one of the more graphic torture scenes to be cut before allowing the film's release in 1975.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

Recommended