The Lion Has Seven Heads

1970 film directed by Glauber Rocha

Gianni Barcelloni
Claude-Antoine

Starring

Rada Rassimov
Giulio Brogi
Gabriele Tinti
Jean-Pierre Léaud

CinematographyGuido CosulichEdited byEduardo Escorel
Glauber RochaMusic byBaden Powell

Production
companies

Polifilm
Claude Antoine Filmes
Mapa Filmes

Distributed byAnimatógrafo

Release date

1970 (1970)

Running time

103 minutesCountriesFrance
Italy
BrazilLanguagePortuguese

The Lion Has Seven Heads (original title:Der Leone Have Sept Cabeças) is a 1970 French-Italian-Brazilian film directed by Glauber Rocha. It was shot on location in Brazzaville, the Congo during the time Rocha was exiled.^[1]^[2]

Plot

In the late 1960s, a white preacher in Africa announces the world is due to end soon as he has captured an emissary of the devil. Rather than an emissary, the man is a Latin American revolutionary who supports the local liberation movement. The man escapes from the preacher and contacts a local liberation leader and offers him assistance in the local's fight against Imperialism.

Cast

Rada Rassimov as Marlene
Giulio Brogi as Pablo
Gabriele Tinti as American Agent
Jean-Pierre Léaud as Preacher
Reinhard Kolldehoff as Governor
Aldo Bixio as Mercenary
Baiack as Zumbi
Hugo Carvana as Portuguese
Pascal N'Zonzi

Reception

Film critic Peter Bradshaw, in his 2023 review for The Guardian, rated the film 4 out of 5 stars, characterizing it as "an avant-gardist adventure that offers us a theatre of absurdity and a theatre of cruelty of an obviously Godardian sort." He compares Rocha's cinematic style to that of Jean-Luc Godard, noting Rocha's adeptness with composition and camera movement. Bradshaw critiques the film's portrayal of colonial themes, mentioning its use of the character Marlene as a symbol of colonial desire and the representation of Congolese locals, stating, "The use of the local people in this film is something else that jars a little now in its not-so-subtle condescension." Despite its flaws, he acknowledges the film's historical significance, noting its engagement with revolutionary ideas: "The Lion Has Seven Heads has its own fierce, mad conviction, a bad dream being reconstructed by actors after the event – and the film itself has historical value."^[3]

References

^ Mendonça, Luís (2012-09-13). "Der Leone Have Sept Cabeças (1970) de Glauber Rocha" (in Portuguese). Retrieved March 2, 2014.
^ "O Leão de Sete Cabeças" (in Portuguese). Cinemateca Brasileira. Retrieved May 2, 2014.
^ Bradshaw, Peter (2023-02-20). "The Lion Has Seven Heads review – a fierce revolutionary leftist bad dream from 1970". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-07-13.