This is a true masterpiece. One that brings together Greco-Roman culture, traditionalism vs modernism and the struggle of indigenous cultures against global capitalism, mirrors as mystical adjuncts to mundane life, future shock and so much more...The opening scene: the camera shows a woman in the window of a house. The camera moves back and we see that the house is being demolished by bulldozers. The woman is crying hysterically, and her face is full of anguish.. or is that a state of spiritual ecstasy? We can't easily tell the difference, as the Knieper music score modulates with a Mishima-like nervousnous. The camera moves up and higher, and we see the poor woman's home is an insignificant sacrifice in the cause of the towering skyscrapers and ultra-modern urban business landscape. The changing face of Brazil..The photographer main character is a witness, who occasionally, reluctantly 'steps out of the frame' and takes part in the great collision of colour and experience of Brazilian life, mostly focussing on the theme of 'evading death', which is said to be a 'male illusion' but which is intimately connected to survival - from the street junkies and prostitutes to the 'train surfer' youths he seeks out. Our encounter with Greek themes of manliness and justice and, most of all, tragedy and revenge, comes when the main character photographs an attempted robbery and a street 'duel' with knives that leaves 2 people dead at the hands of a man who appears to be of substance, and who is known to us only as 'Hermes' - the name of a Greek god and a clear allusion to Dumas's Three Musketeers. Debt is a theme 'we do like the Greeks and the Romans', 'you owe me', 'my debt is paid', 'I have come to pay my debt', masculinity is another (the disgust felt towards a man who murders women and marks their faces), and also revenge - blood for blood.The mirror - used as a training tool when training with a knife, but behind the mirror a young woman observes disapprovingly. She is us, or a part of ourselves, that has ceased to be sensation-seeking witness and has taken an active stake in the horrible nitty-gritty of the world of real life and flesh. We observe much as she does, except from behind the camera.. There is also karma - a fat rapist with a penchant for stabbing people downwards in the heart meets the same fate, the last words he hears being unintentionally a version of the torrid threats he himself used to issue. All along, there is the nervousness, the fear, the theme of being outside or inside, always reminding us of the smashing of the house and its walls of safety. After our hero exacts revenge for the sake of his friend, he feels himself a total and complete outsider, and his photography habits change so that he photographs the mundane human experience of love between a man and a woman. No longer does he photograph the human juggling with imminent death: he has experienced that as an insider but has changed. And yet he can't go back...At the end, Hermes is of course the protector of travellers but the hero becomes an unwilling nomad who really seeks stability and married life, but can no longer have it. Like Hermes himself, who wants to return to his own country... Very moving, and brilliant.

Fighting with edged weapons fell into obscurity after the advent of the gun. The old European blade skills almost died out, as did the Oriental arts of Arnis, Escrima, and Silat(which were derived in part from the fighting art of the Spanish Conquistadors).The science of blade fighting smoldered weakly for five hundred years in remote outposts of Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan where the gun never quite captured the imagination of peoples who had truly understood steel.Recently, for reasons which are still obscure, blade skills have enjoyed a renaissance as a legitimate martial art in the United States. A sub-culture of knife fighting students has emerged which will be the audience of this excellent movie.This film stands almost alone as an artistic representation of training and fighting with edged weapons. Early in the movie Tcheky Karyo carries off a chilling and realistic knife-fighting sequence which makes the hair stand up on the neck. He then plays the instructor, showing the viewer the simple beauty of how an art thousands of years old can be transmitted.Peter Coyote makes us see the mental and physical journey of the student. At the climax of the movie he manages to project truly the mind-set needed to face steel with steel as he goes toe-to-toe with the true master in a duel to the death.The training sequences in this movie are clear expressions of real techniques used in the old arts of Arnis and Escrima, with elements of European blade practice thrown in. The film could actually be studied as a training aid.A certain amount of "Hollywood" was included to extend the final fighting sequence for dramatic effect, but this will not be noticed by the novice and should not interfere with the enjoyment of any viewer interested in the arts involved.This film is an example of the movie being better than the book. Rubim Fonseca's book "The High Art" contained only the germ of the grim plot which the movie fully exploits. For some reason, after having his character learn the high art, Fonseca has him put the knife away in a drawer and back away from the brutal reality of the science he has learned, contenting himself with amorous conquests rather than the quest for vengeance which was the real core of the book.This movie will have a limited but loyal audience for many years. It is sad that there will probably never be a DVD version in which the frames could be stopped to better understand the science involved.

Whoever owns this movie please release on DVD. This is a cult type movie centered around knife fighting. The back story, cinematography, and allure of a dangerous earthly South America draws the viewer into what is probably Peter Coyote's most interesting work. Highly recommended! Very few movies transmit the feeling of a place as well as this movie does so visually. I have been searching for this movie for sometime and wonder why it hasn't been released on DVD. Early Walter Salles is much better than most of what is being shot today. Coyote plays a photographer living in Rio that avenges the death of a prostitute friend and goes on a journey through South America to do so. In the process of this his character learns to fight with knifes and becomes involved in an underworld whose rules he is forced to adapt to and survive.

The path of a pacifist photographer being seduced by the need for justice and the intrigue of a hitherto unknown world of professional assassins plying their trade via the intimate and all-too-personal death delivered by a knife is a very deep experience to watch unfold, and Peter Coyote does it to a tee.His inner revulsion to the horror of embracing this culture is offset by its fascination as well as the necessity of descending into it to find out the truth behind the killing of model/prostitutes. Slowly but surely you observe the influence of his gaining knowledge and confidence as he is tutored (by a master of the art he just happens to see and captures on camera one day plying his craft), all dragging him down to dive in completely.The plot thickens as characters are revealed and surprises are forthcoming, all leading to a fantastic final knife-fighting confrontation with the acknowledged master, someone he has known all along but not suspected.I saw this movie about 10 years ago, but never noted the title until I was trying to order it on-line, and now I have it in my collection. I highly recommend it for its combination of intense drama, revealing close analysis of the process of a sworn pacifist turned to embrace violence as a way of life, amazing fighting scenes, and an uplifting ending. Unforgettable.