The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho dir. by Daniel Augusto

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho dir. by Daniel Augusto Megwen Loveless The Pilgrim: The Best Story of Paulo Coelho. Augusto, Daniel, dir. Music Box Films, 2015. DVD. This Brazilian/Spanish production tells the life story of author Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian writer whose mystical novels have topped best-seller charts across the world for nearly three decades. The debut fictional biography by director Daniel Augusto, this film features brothers Júlio and Ravel Andrade portraying three different eras in the author's life, pieced together into a chronological kaleidoscope. The plot switches between Paulo's troubled youth in the 1960s, his rebellious years in the 1970s and 80s and his reflective later life as a successful author of international acclaim. While the film has some artistic flaws that might limit its usefulness in the second-language classroom, it still tells a story that many struggling writers might relate to. The overarching message of perseverance in the face of internal psychological struggle and artistic opposition is a positive one, and one that will resonate with students of Latin American literature and culture, particularly those interested in Coelho's work. We meet young Paulo as he is surrendered to a mental institution by bourgeois parents who fear they cannot control him. After two suicide attempts, his hospitalization results in [End Page 319] repeated electroshock therapy, which does little for his perennial apathy and, instead, seems to fuel later acts of defiance. In his post-adolescent life, we see Coelho (now played by older brother Júlio Andrade) unleashed in all his libertine glory, evidently nourishing himself on cocaine, marijuana and other hallucinogens while partaking in exorbitant orgies and traveling the world. It is during this phase that he meets and begins writing with Raul Seixas, an iconoclast rocker who would later become a Brazilian music icon. As his volatile working relationship with Raul evolves, so too does his interest in the occult, a running theme throughout the film. Finally, we encounter Coelho older and wiser, on the eve of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publishing of The Alchemist. In this last iteration, again played by Júlio Andrade in heavy make-up, he has transformed into a headstrong citizen of the world, making his way from a post-surgical recovery bed to Santiago de Compostela to revisit the magical journey of self-discovery that first inspired his book The Pilgrimage. Though the script gives us a realistic synopsis of Coelho's metamorphosis from recalcitrant teen to enlightened sage, his character development is somewhat difficult to follow, largely due to the fragmented narration of the film. While the director may have avoided a staid linear plot line by employing this chronological collage, he leaves the viewer trying to piece together various personality changes into an understanding of a single protagonist over time. The ontological exercise of exploring self-actualization has indeed built the Coelho literary empire, and in that sense the necessity of deconstructing the various narratives of the film is an interesting intellectual challenge that parallels his published works, but perhaps one that not all viewers will have the patience to investigate. The Pilgrim is another chapter in Brazil's tradition of expensive biopic dramas that portray the personal and professional trajectories of famous politicians and artists who struggled in their journeys to success. Certainly, there is ample material through which to tell a redeeming story of triumph over life circumstances: Coelho flirted with death, endured physical and mental torture (both at the hands of psychiatrists and military personnel), experimented with drugs and alternative lifestyles, helped to create rock-and-roll history, and eventually rose to unprecedented literary fame. Still, our window into his experience remains somewhat obscured in the Andrade brothers' treatment of Coelho's introversion. The actors have done perhaps too good a job at depicting his troubled disposition, creating in each of the three representations an impenetrable façade of aloofness, stemming first from the anger of his youth, then from the drug-fueled indifference of his young adult life, and finally from a mystical preocupation that seems to keep his eyes focused on something remote instead of his immediate surroundings. Unlike other...