Sunday 12 December 2010

El Nino del Ingenio - Reboiro 1968

Reboiro borrows heavily from San Francisco psychedelic art for this rarity of a poster for a Brasilian film about a boy sent to live on a sugar cane plantation in colonial Brazil. Menino de Engenho (Plantation Boy) is long forgotten black and white film with a serious message about the exploitative economics of an imperialist regime. Reboiro's decision to copy the poster art of San Francisco (which was almost certainly unavailable via any official channels in Cuba) is a statement of non-conformity by an artist who had seen his family's livelihood suffer under the revolution. The freedom that the Cuban film poster artists enjoyed under their guardian and protector Saul Yellin allowed them to draw on artistic styles that were anathema to the Cuban government. Once again this is a poster promoting a serious black and white socialist film using a flamboyant, decadent, western design.