Four Days in September

A Phoenix pick

Brazil's official entry for the 1997 Academy Awards, Four Days in September, is the kind of controlled, ideologically coherent, true-to-history political drama nobody makes any more. Filmmaker Bruno Barreto (Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands) returns to 1969, when a group of idealist college-age citizens, revolted by life in a military dictatorship, went underground and formed a Marxist guerrilla cadre called the October 8 Revolutionary Movement. At first they robbed banks. Then they kidnapped the American ambassador to Brazil, Charles Burke Elbrick, and held him captive, demanding the release of 15 political prisoners.

Barreto sticks close to the life of one of the kidnappers, Fernando Gabeira, which may explain why the scenes among the young revolutionaries feel so credible, and so claustrophobic. Particularly effective is actress Fernanda Torres as Comrade María, the most strident and ideological of the cadre. There's also a winning performance by American comic actor Alan Arkin as the Republican ambassador, who proves a model prisoner.

The real-life Gabeira suffered many years of forced exile, and menial jobs, for his part in the kidnapping. Today he's an active member of Brazil's Green Party and an avowed pacifist. Ambassador Elbrick has died in the interim, but his daughter stated at a Four Days press conference at this year's Berlin Film Festival: "My father felt close to those who abducted him. He was treated well. He was impressed by their idealism and felt an enduring connection." Screens at the Kendall Square Saturday the 13th at 7 and 9:30 p.m. and Sunday the 14th at noon and 2:15 and 4:30 p.m. Director Bruno Barreto will appear before Saturday's 7 p.m. screening.

-- Gerald Peary

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