Death becomes him

>> Brazil's legendary auteur, José Mojica Marins (aka Coffin Joe), arrives to scare the wits out of the Fantasia crowd

by MATTHEW HAYS

It's almost impossible to know where to begin when describing the films of José Mojica Marins, Brazil's most famous antiestablishment filmmaker. Beginning in '59, Marins embarked on his first bit of commercial filmmaking, a western titled A Sina do Aventureiro (The Adventurer's Fate). What follows is a pretty astonishing oeuvre, films that feature scenes of necrophilia, mass murder, copious corpses rising from the grave, bestiality, genital mutilation, rape--you name the depravity, these films have it.

And then there's the existentialist undertaker, Zé do Caixao, which loosely translates in English as Coffin Joe. First appearing in Marins's '63 entry At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul Away, Coffin Joe has now established himself as the most famous Brazilian horror persona, ranked by many South American pop culture experts right up there with Dracula or Frankenstein. Steeped in the Catholic repression of his youth, Marins had originally planned for an actor to play Coffin Joe, who broke plenty of religious taboos throughout his films. But the actor pulled out at the last minute, and Marins stepped into the role that has since made him a Brazilian household name.

Coffin Joe films are utterly surreal, and this anti-hero is an intellectually superior, amoral man who wanders from town to town, killing and humiliating people, desperately looking for a woman perfect enough to bear his child. This search for immortality runs throughout the Coffin Joe films, and each one boasts scenes more bizarre than the last, including horrendous orgies (that occasionally end in murder), snakes, toads and spiders crawling all over women, drug indulgences and mutilations of the human body.

Bugs and drugs

Just as compelling as the films are the stories around Marins and the productions themselves. It is fitting that death is a recurring theme in his work, as actors and crew members on his sets have been known to mysteriously kick off during shoots. And during one sequence in the '60s, a group of actresses panicked when showered with huge spiders. The women ran away screaming, and a number of the spiders were squashed. From then on, Marins would carefully audition his cast members, a routine that included placing snakes, spiders and toads on potential stars to ensure that they wouldn't prove squeamish later.

With their drug sequences, depictions of Hell and anti-Catholic iconography, the films inspired much censorship from the repressed Brazilian military dictatorship of the time. Virtually all of Marins's films faced censorship, and Marins himself was imprisoned for a time for creating such sacrilegious, threatening films. In the late '60s, Brazil--like much of the rest of the planet--was experiencing some very significant social changes. A new left was forming, and its artistic contingent was rising under the banner of cinema de lixo, or trash cinema. Like the films of Andy Warhol or John Waters, these films were radically antibourgeois in their aesthetics, challenging any smooth, studio-style, mainstream movie ideals. The left claimed Marins as their own, though he has always been decidedly ambivalent about politics. He is philosophical and clearly existential, but his ideological bent has always been hard to pin down.

In the '70s, Marins found funding for his horror visions hard to come by. He deviated in form, making screwball comedies and even pornography. Even his hardcore went against the grain; 24 Hours of Blazing Sex, as it was called, became the first Brazilian film to feature bestiality (a woman had sex with a German Shepherd). In the film's odd storyline, the woman's fiancé is so upset with her for having sex with a dog, he retaliates by having sex with a mule. Marins cast the ugliest women he could find for the film, attempting to sabotage the producers' hopes for sizable profits. Despite this, 24 Hours of Blazing Sex turned out to be a huge success.

Despite his notoriety on home turf, Coffin Joe has remained a fairly obscure figure internationally. But in the '90s, Marins began to be invited to festivals and midnight screenings across Europe and the U.S. Now he's getting the recognition he richly deserves, appearing in character as Coffin Joe and answering questions about his movies. As rough as much of Marins's work is, as author and horror expert Pete Tombs (Mondo Macabro) puts it, "the cinematic dreams of Marins are amongst the most powerful ever to reach the screen."

Marins will be in town this week at Fantasia for screenings of both This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (1966) and Awakening of the Beast (1968). Also screening will be a documentary about his life, Coffin Joe: The Strange World of José Mojica Marins, directed by André Barcinski and Ivan Finotti. The Mirror caught up with Marins at his Sao Paulo home.

Mirror: Have you ever been surprised at the huge success of your creation, Coffin Joe?

José Mojica Marins: Yes, I've been surprised since the first film in '63. I wasn't supposed to play the character, you know, I had to do it because the actor that I had hired quit at the last minute. Coffin Joe became an icon in Brazil, much bigger than me. It became part of the national folklore.

M: You've said that Coffin Joe isn't really you, just a character you created and play. What do you say to people who insist he's your alterego?

JMM: We're completely different: he is a very mean guy, and I consider myself a pretty nice person. Coffin Joe is still trying to have his first child, while I have plenty of children. But a lot of people still think we're the same. It's hard sometimes, there are people who cross to the other side of the street when they see me. I think it's very funny.

Losing my religion

M: Why do you think the military was so threatened by Coffin Joe?

JMM: They felt threatened by everything, really. My films were targeting some themes that they didn't really want to discuss, such as drugs and religion, and all my films were either cut or banned entirely.

M: It has been said the military didn't like your films because of the drug themes. I have another theory: could it be they didn't like the idea of the dead coming back to life and getting revenge, seeing as the military killed so many subversives?

JMM: I don't think they were that smart. I think they were simply very uptight, conservative idiots.

M: What's the most surprising reaction you've ever received to one of your movies?

JMM: I've had it all: death threats, people wanting to beat me in the street, women asking to go to bed with me, everything, so nothing really surprises me. I remember in 1967, when This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse was released, people had nervous breakdowns during the Hell sequence. This woman went into a trance and starting screaming in the theatre, like she was possessed or something. I liked it so much that I started hiring people to do the same in all my films. It made for very good press.

M: Are you religious? Have your religious beliefs changed since the '60s?

JMM: I was a very religious child, but I had a lot of problems with priests, and I lost my faith. They used to tell people in masses not to see my movies.

M: Do you have any plans to return as Coffin Joe in a movie?

JMM: Yes! This year I am shooting a new film, finally, called The Demons. It's a three-episode feature film, kind of a Brazilian version of Twilight Zone. Coffin Joe will appear in at least one of the stories.

M: Do you have any regrets about movies you've made?

JMM: Well, I've made some films when I was drinking a little too much, so some of the films are not very good, especially some at the end of the '70s, but I don't think I regret doing them, because at least I was paid. If I regret something in my life, it has to be not getting an honest agent in 1963.

M: You've been embraced by the political left. Do you feel that your films were political in that sense?

JMM: Well, Brazilian intellectuals liked my films a lot. The problem was they started doing their own films, and the films were all horrible, I couldn't understand anything they were trying to say. I really don't know why they liked me so much. They--and the military--saw a lot of political things in my films, but I was never interested in politics. I still can't say if I prefer the right or the left, and everyone I voted for has been a disappointment, so I prefer to keep a distance from politics.

M: Who's your favourite filmmaker working today?

JMM: I really like Roman Polanski. His new films are not quite as good as the old stuff, but he's a very good filmmaker. But I really haven't seen anything that impressed me recently. I thought The Blair Witch Project was not very good. They said they shot that film in two weeks. Well, I would have shot it in two days and spent 10 times less than they did, and would have made a very scary film. That witch really didn't scare me at all. :



This interview was translated by Brazilian journalist André Barcinski, who will be in town to present the documentary he co-directed on Marins this Saturday, July 21.

The Coffin Joe films and the documentary about his life screen this Saturday, July 21, and Monday, July 23, at Fantasia.

See repertory listings for showtimes.

Complete Fantasia info: www.fantasiafest.com