The Red Light Bandit (1968)

The Red Light Bandit
(Rogério Sganzerla, 1968, Brazil, DCP, 92 min)

This delirious “Third World western” offers a subversive, New Wave-inspired spin through the trash heap of Brazilian pop culture. With The Red Light Bandit, a farcical account of a real-life serial criminal made larger-than-life by the news media, 21-year-old director Rogério Sganzerla delivered the signature work of Brazil’s Cinema Marginal, a radical film movement dedicated to the rejection of good taste. “I will never deliver clear ideas, eloquent speeches, or classically beautiful images when confronted with garbage,” Sganzerla declared; “I will only reveal, through free sound and funereal rhythm, our own condition as ill-behaved, colonized people. Within the garbage can, one must be radical.”