{"id":29852,"date":"2024-10-29T13:19:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-29T20:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=29852"},"modified":"2024-10-29T13:19:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-29T20:19:17","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-the-red-light-bandit-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=29852","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: THE RED LIGHT BANDIT (1968)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This \u201cSpecial Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Severin Films is currently available for purchase.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Review by James Jay Edwards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the late sixties and early seventies, a cinematic\nmovement known as Cinema Marginal<\/em> was taking hold in Brazil. This\ngritty, underground movement and genre stood against the mainstream Brazilian\ncinema, which mostly was imitating what was happening in American cinema at the\ntime. One of the finest examples of the Cinema Marginal filmmaking movement is\nwriter\/director Rog\u00e9rio Sganzerla\u2019s The Red Light Bandit<\/em>. And now,\nSeverin Films has given us a nice new offering of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Red Light Bandit<\/em> aka O Bandido da Luz Vermelha<\/em>\nis about a criminal named Jorge (Paulo Villaca) who breaks into houses in the\nrich section of Sao Paulo. He earns the nickname \u201cThe Red Light Bandit\u201d because\nhe uses a red flashlight to light his way, raping the female occupants of the\nhomes and stealing whatever he can carry, and then disappearing into the city\nto spend his profits. Needless to say, his adventures involve plenty of crime,\nbetrayal, and mayhem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rog\u00e9rio Sganzerla found inspiration for his anti-hero story\nin real-life criminal Jo\u00e3o Ac\u00e1cio Pereira da Costa, whose true exploits were\nactually a bit worse than those in the movie. The Red Light Bandit<\/em> is\ngrounded in reality, yet it still maintains a sensationalistic aspect. It\u2019s a\ndownright creepy movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transfer on this packaging is a 2k Scan from the\noriginal camera negative in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The production is somewhat\nlo-fi anyway, so it\u2019s cleaned up about as well as it can be without stripping\nthe film of its grimy atmosphere and character. The soundtrack is presented in\nmono, also seemingly cleaned up as well as it can be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are some quality special features included with this\nrelease of The Red Light Bandit<\/em>, consisting mainly of a pair of\ninterviews and a pair of short films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First up is Cinema Marginal<\/em>, which is an interview\nwith producer and film conservationist Paulo Sacramento. This is a clip-filled\nconversation about the Cinema Marginal<\/em> movement that is both\nentertaining and informative. Most interesting is the section of the discussion\nwhere Sacramento talks about researching a documentary about a prison where he\nhappened to meet Jo\u00e3o Ac\u00e1cio Pereira da Costa, the inspiration for the character\nin Red Light Bandit<\/em>, who was incarcerated there. There\u2019s also a fun\nsection where he reminisces about the Coffin Joe<\/em> movies, whose creator,\nJos\u00e9 Mojica Marins, was a contemporary of Sganzerla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next interview is called The Anti-Muse<\/em>. This is\nanother clipped-filled conversation, this time with actress and filmmaker\nHelena Ignez. This one isn\u2019t as entertaining as Sacramento\u2019s interview, but it\nis just as informative. While The Red Light Bandit<\/em> is only touched upon\nbriefly, Ignez discusses her entire career, much of which was spent making\nmovies with Rog\u00e9rio Sganzerla. Of particular interest is a section where she\ndiscusses her and Sganzerla\u2019s exile from Brazil in London and Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In addition to the interviews, this package also includes a\ncouple of cool short films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first is Sganzerla\u2019s Comics<\/em>, which is a\nten-minute mini-documentary made in 1969 about comics and how they both reflect\nthe current times and predict future trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the second is Horror Palace Hotel<\/em>, Jairo\nFerreira\u2019s verit\u00e9-style look at his, Sganzerla\u2019s, and Jos\u00e9 Mojica Marins\u2019\nadventures at the 1978 Brasilia Horror Film Festival. This short also has a\nsomewhat long-winded introduction by filmmaker Dennison Ramalho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then, there\u2019s the obligatory trailer, which completes the\nset of extras on the disc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Red Light Bandit<\/em> is an important film in\nBrazilian history, both from a cinematic viewpoint and from a cultural one.\nLike so many of Severin\u2019s releases, this is a great package and presentation of\na movie that, frankly, needed a great package and presentation. So, again,\nSeverin is filling a need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This \u201cSpecial Edition\u201d Blu-ray from Severin Films is currently available for purchase. Review by James Jay Edwards In the late sixties and early seventies, a cinematic movement known as Cinema Marginal was taking hold in Brazil. This gritty, underground movement and genre stood against the mainstream Brazilian cinema, which mostly was imitating what was happening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":29861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[98,1901,2270,2923,2943,3067,3436,9319,15170,15859,16784,17640,18083,22006,22007,22008,23321],"class_list":["post-29852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-98","tag-assault","tag-bandit","tag-blasts-from-the-past","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-red-light-bandit","tag-blu-ray","tag-brazil","tag-horror","tag-o-bandido-da-luz-vermelha","tag-paulo-villaca","tag-red-light-bandit","tag-sao-paulo","tag-severin-films","tag-the-red-light-bandit","tag-the-red-light-bandit-blu-ray","tag-the-red-light-bandit-blu-ray-review","tag-true-story"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}