Luscious jungle leaves, warm, moist air, stilted houses built over water on a routinely flooded island on a tributary of the Amazon, and the songs of jungle animals fill this gorgeous film. Amidst mangrove trees and soft earth, with idyllic, slow-moving life sustained by the antioxidant-rich acai berry and shrimp, an exotically beautiful 13-year-old barefoot Brazilian, called Tielle (Jamilli Correa, perfectly cast from local girls ), travels by boat to school. Everyone knows each other.
The social dynamic in the closed community seems to work … at first. Men provide the meat, both fish from the river and animals from forays into the jungle. Women cook, look after children, and procreate. Tielle’s mother is in her fourth pregnancy.
But we keep wondering why one of the girls in Tielle’s class is pregnant at so young an age. Is she already married? It’s only as the gorgeously produced film moves on that we realize there is a child exploitation epidemic on the island (UN Office of Drugs and Crime) and filmmaker Marianna Brennand delicately exposes it.
The title, “Manas”, is an informal, affectionate term for sisters or best friends. Tielle has set up a little tribute in the jungle for her older sister – a little shrine embedded in the crux of tree roots that she visits to pay homage. Her sister’s disappearance is vaguely explained. She left on a barge with a good man, her mother blankly repeats.
Tielle is left with her younger sister to splash and play in the water and compete in strength games with their legs. Her older brother accompanies her father in meat procurement. But one day her hammock breaks and her father has her sleep in his bed. The next day he has her replace her brother in his boat to hunt for meat on land.
Indeed, they find some kind of animal and bring it back for dinner. But Tielle can’t eat it. Something else happened on the hunt, and she’s feeling sick about it.
Brennand shows the alternatives for incest that Tielle can take, but it’s basically island women vs a strong, feared man.
To a Western audience, it can be viewed as analogous to oppressive cultures, male or female, that bend people against their will, that dehumanize and use others. While there may be mechanisms to fight back, to call for justice, in the widest, greatest scope of it, we still see oppressors act out evil with surprising impunity, not just abusing but killing at will the hearts, spirits, and bodies of those in the way.
While Brennand presents some options, in the broadest sense I see “Manas” as an allegorical account of the abuse of power and one way to stop it.
Very sensitively created, “Manas” is a tribute to female power. Brennand writes that she hopes this film will “be able to mobilize viewers’ empathy, breaking the enormous taboo surrounding this difficult reality that affects all of us women.”
Beautifully filmed on equatorial Marajó Island in northern Brazil, with many artistically composed scenes by Pierre de Kerchove, ABC, an outstanding screenplay and a cacophony of sounds from the jungle, “Manas” is an important work of brave art.
Rating: 10/10
Credits
Director: Marianna Brennand
Producers: Carolina Benevides and Marianna Brennand
Screenplay: Felipe Sholl, Marcelo Grabowsky, Marianna Brennand, Antonia Pellegrino, Camila Agustini and Carolina Benevides
Director of Photography: Pierre de Kerchove, ABC
Direct sound: Valéria Ferro
Editor: Isabela Monteiro de Castro, ABC
Art Director: Marcos Pedroso
Costume Design: Kika Lopes
Makeup Design: Luiz Gaia
Supervisor Sound Editing: Miriam Biderman, ABC
Sound Editor: Ricardo Reis, ABC
Mixing: Armando Torres Jr., ABC
Casting Director: Anna Luiza Paes
Acting Coach: René Guerra
Executive Producers: Carolina Benevides and Marcelo Maximo
Cast: Jamilli Correa, Fátima Macedo, Rômulo Braga, Dira Paes, Emilly Pantoja, Samira Eloá, Enzo Maia, Gabriel Rodrigues, Ingrid Trigueiro, Clébia Souza, Nena Inoue, and Rodrigo Garcia.
Release: May 22, 2026 at the Film Forum
Winner: Director’s Award at Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days)
Executive Producers: Sean Penn, Walter Salles, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne
. . .
Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/itsjustmovies!