A brilliant and by-now almost completely forgotten first film, The Brave Warrior is the story of a political suicide. Made in 1966 by Gustavo Dahl, the film is also a lucid analysis of the failure of parliamentary politics and the bankruptcy of the bourgeois class in contemporary Brazil. The “hero” is an intelligent member of the radical opposition who decides to join the government and work for social change from within. Dahl's direction is cool and detached in its detailed observation of the process of moral and political disintegration. A central theme of the film is the way in which words are used politically to obfuscate issues, to prevent action, to rationalize powerlessness. Only in Eric Rohmer's very different “moral tales” have spoken words, even monologues, been presented on film so intelligently, so compellingly.