Sightlines · reception
How Four Days in September was received
1997 · Bruno Barreto · Four Days in September on Sightlines
The arc
An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998, it was fiercely contested in Brazil — former militants of the era publicly disputed its portrayal of the guerrillas — and then quietly faded abroad; the recent wave of interest in Brazilian dictatorship cinema after I'm Still Here has sent some viewers back to it.
What’s debated
The perennial fight is over its even-handedness: does humanizing both the young kidnappers and their police pursuers count as mature complexity, or as softening the dictatorship's crimes?
Its footprint
It helped put Brazil's military dictatorship on international screens during the 1990s revival of Brazilian cinema, though it was quickly overshadowed by Central Station a year later.
Where it stands
A beloved-but-forgotten entry in the Brazilian retomada — the 'other' 90s Brazilian Oscar nominee that cinephiles rediscover via Fernanda Torres or Alan Arkin completism.
Did you know? It's based on the memoir of Fernando Gabeira, one of the real 1969 kidnappers of US Ambassador Charles Elbrick — Gabeira later returned from exile and became a Brazilian congressman.