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Devil Queen (The)

Country: Brazil, Language: Portugeuse, 100 mins

Original Title

A Rainha Diaba
  • Director: Antonio Carlos da Fontoura
  • Writer: Antonio Carlos da Fontoura; Plínio Marcos
  • Producer: Roberto Farias; Maurício Nabuco

CGiii Comment

It's difficult to take this seriously...with a motley crew of bad actors and the eyesore of 70s fashion.

With a psychopathic gang boss who just happens to be drag queen, it stretches credulity to breaking point

Throw in a screeching soundtrack - it is unlikely that you will see it through to its deafening end.


Trailer...

THE DEVIL QUEEN (Antonio Carlos da Fontoura, 1974) from Spectacle Theater on Vimeo.

The(ir) Blurb...

The Black gay “Devil’s Queen” (her real name is never mentioned) rules the underworld of Rio de Janeiro from the back room of a brothel. Her eyes thick with green eyeshadow, her gaze falls mercilessly upon the members of her drug cartel. The same jackknife can be used either to shave her legs or to slit open traitors. But her reign of terror is unstable; resistance is brewing. Soon, everyone is waging war against each other to replace the queen: the favela gangsters against the gays, the drag queens against the sex workers. People with few chances in bourgeois life.

Fontoura’s garish pulp construction stands for popular Brazilian cinema during the military dictatorship, whereby power relations were exaggerated in nihilistic fashion. Much like in Karim Aïnouz’s Madame Satã (2002), legendary 1930s gangster figure João Francisco dos Santos serves here as an inspiration, who this time is transposed into the 1970s as an early representation of queerness. Milton Gonçalves plays her with various voices, and the dichotomous concept of masculinity – which allows no shades of grey between macho and queen – dissolves here into glitter and air.

Cast & Characters

Milton Goncalves as Rainha Diaba;
Odete Lara as Isa Gonzalez;
Stepan Nercessian as Bereco;
Nelson Xavier as Catitu;
Yara Cortes as Violeta;
Wilson Grey as Manco;
Edgar Gurgel Aranha as Robertinho;
Lutero Luiz as Anao;
Geraldo Sobreira as Odete;
Kim Negro as Dentinho