O Ebrio

The 1946 film O Ebrio directed by Gilda de Abreu is a tale of despair and salvation in Christ. The main character, Gilberto, begins the film a homeless man straying around a city after being shunned by his relatives. He soon finds himself stumbling in to a church where the priest offers Gilberto some much needed assistance in the form of a meal and a room to stay in. This action is the beginning of a chain of events that lead to Gilberto obtaining great success in his life. While living with the reverend, Gilberto begins to write music and even gains some aspirations for his own life as well as to help the priest. He notices that the church does not seem to have much money after Gilberto witnesses the reverend attempting to fix a broken window with some paper. He then feels compelled to give back to the church and has an internal struggle with his conscience in the mirror, who warns him of women bringing him havoc.

Gilberto then over hears on the radio an announcer describe a contest for talented singers, thus he decides to go down to the location and perform the song he has recently written while living in the church. The audience and listens love the spiritual song about his journey from the streets to his now safe haven and he becomes very popular on the circuit, making enough money to have the window at the church fixed. Pretty soon Gilberto has finished his medical degree and is now a practicing doctor. Gilberto falls in love with a nurse at the hospital, Marieta, and then soon marries her. It does not take long for his relatives to find out about Gilberto’s success and they begin to try to create a relationship with him out of desperation some of his money.Surely his relatives do not have his best interest at heart, which we later see when his cousin Jose runs off with Marieta. Leaving Gilberto to fake his own death only to escape the superficial and unfulfilling life he was leading.

A lot of the film centered on religion and faith, which can be seen in the fact that Gilberto sought help in the church and then began to lead a prosperous life and in that the music that uplifted our main character out of poverty was all religious music. The songs he sang on the radio told his tales of regaining his faith. We also saw that as Gilberto strayed away from the church and singing the songs by becoming enthralled in his work and then marrying and moving into his own house, things began to get worse for him; beginning with his wife’s peculiar relationship with Jose.

Women are presented in this film in particularly negative light: as servants, conniving, untrustworthy, or simply unable to have an opinion of their own (as was the case with his cousin’s wife). The scene with Gilberto’s conscience talking to him in the mirror and mentioning how women will not bring good fortune to him was a precursor to the situation of his wife leaving him and Lola tricking Marieta. Another motif in the film is Gilberto’s desire to fix things: left medical school to fix the issue with the family farm, fixed the window in the church, became a doctor to fix the girl’s legs. Until finally towards the end of the film when he has discovered his wife left him with Jose, he no longer wants to fix things. He just wants to forget. Thus he opts to become a drunkard.