The challenge"

the hard choice

Abstract

I analyze here the film The Challenge - directed by Paulo César Saraceni (1965) - a member of Cinema Novo, a cultural movement that characterized Brazilian filmography in the 1960s. The filmmakers who made up this movement took a critical perspective on social problems, using cinema as a way of denouncing social inequalities, hunger and misery in the country. Despite this position, I have identified films that also dealt with intimate dramas, continually relating them to social dramas. The Challenge, set in the city of Rio de Janeiro, addresses the anguish of a young intellectual who sees his ideals thwarted by the military coup introduced in the country in 1964. His pain stunts him in the face of a love relationship, considered forbidden.