‘The Story of the Tender Trio’ retains some of the romantic, warm imagery of the earlier poetic representations of outlaws, social bandits, echoing the cangaceiros, the revolutionary outsiders of earlier Brazilian films but there is often a disjunction between the image we see on screen and what we hear Rocket say. The image of Bené and Dice with their arms round each other laughing will recur later in the film as a sepia coloured insert, the recollection of a lost more innocent time.
A montage of shots of six images that turn the boy Dice into the man Zé. His rebirth is through a candlelit voodoo christening ceremony that evokes the dead. A priest in a wheelchair gives him a magic amulet that seals his pact with death and sanctifies his violent behaviour. God has forgotten him and he can gain power through Exu the devil “the light that shines forth”. The glimpse of slum dwellers wearing gold jewellery, with their cars and girls bears some relationship to the understood paraphernalia of the gangster film. In contrast to this Rocket is seen in an atmosphere of normality and freedom - working in the newspaper office, riding around in the newspaper delivery van with the open aspect of the mountain in the distance.
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