A Luta Vive

Overview

São Paulo, July 1917. During the lead-up to the city’s first major labor strike, workers protesting outside a factory in the Brás neighborhood are attacked by the police, resulting in the death of a young Spanish shoemaker named José Martinez. The film depicts Martinez’s funeral—which takes place on a desolate working-class street—in a dreamlike, oneiric fashion. At some point during the funeral procession, Martinez’s specter awakens and wanders through the ruins of old workers' housing, eventually arriving—by way of a rift in time—in the year 2017.