At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul

First chapter in the saga of undertaker Zé do Caixão (also known as Coffin Joe), the cult figure single-handedly conceived, developed, and performed by independent Brazilian film director José Mojica Marins. With his own personal style that winks at surrealism, he highlights his lugubrious character’s subversive, blasphemous nature right off the bat. Zé never misses an opportunity to mock local customs, abuse neighbors with fits of unprecedented violence, or spew bile on the establishment and religion, considering the latter pablum for the ignorant masses.

Moreover, he’s a man with a one-track mind, obsessed with the idea of perpetuating his bloodline through the birth of a perfect son (“What is existence? It is the continuity of blood. What is blood? It is the reason to exist!”); this obsession leads to an existence of perpetual turmoil and conflict (since his obsession literally and sarcastically conflicts with his loathing of tradition).

Technically still a bit immature (Marins’ style will come into greater focus with his subsequent productions) and built on a bare-bones screenplay, the film still manages to surprise with its wildly rebellious nature, especially considering the sociopolitical context in which it was made: the Brazil of the early 1960s wasn’t exactly the ideal location to dedicate yourself to transgressive artistic depictions. Zé’s cynical exploits will be further fleshed out in the sequel “This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse” (1967).