The Red Light Bandit

Described by Sganzerla—21 years old when he directed his wild-eyed feature debut—as a “Western about the Third World,” The Red Light Bandit drew inspiration from the exploits of João Acácio Pereira da Costa, a recently arrested career criminal who’d acquired the status of folk hero, and, in its rough-edged style and vigorous montage, from the recent output of Jean-Luc Godard. A descent into the mean streets of São Paulo’s Boca do Lixo (Mouth of Garbage) neighborhood, Sganzerla’s brash, confrontational film is one of the key works of Brazil’s Cinema Marginal movement, per its creator: “Dirty and poetic, impure and pretentious… [speaking] of politics or of banditry without aesthetic respect, to the point of adopting an obscene liberty.”