How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman

How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman was dos Santos’s biggest international hit and a defining work of Cinema Novo’s tropicália phase. Set in the 16th century, the film tells the subversive story of a Frenchman captured by the native Tupinambá tribe and forced to live among them before being killed and eaten. Using a prologue that recalls Luis Buñuel, cinema verité camerawork, and historical texts, dos Santos creates an allegorical examination of savagery, anthropology, and colonialism that is as funny and erotic as it is radical. (84 mins., 35mm)