Gaijin, Caminhos da Liberdade

Thousands of Japanese looked for new horizons in 1908, fleeing hunger, unemployment and ready for adventure after the Russo-Japanese war. About 800 of them headed for Brazil, which at the time was greatly expanding its coffee plantations. Yamada and Kobayashi decide to leave Japan, but whole families--including at least one married couple--are preferred by the authorities. So it is decided that Yamada will marry Titoe, Kobayashi's 16-year-old sister. In Brazil, they are offered a work contract on the Santa Rosa coffee plantation in São Paulo state, where all the immigrants are treated with hostility and where they are forced to stay on a never-ending work schedule. The feeling of a common humanity only comes through other immigrants, like Enrico, an Italian, Ceará, a man from the Brazilian Northeast, and Tonho, the plantation accountant, who is impressed by Titoe and sees the inhuman conditions under which the workers suffer. Those who survive go through an aaculturation process and a desperate struggle to survive that ends up being one of the means that gives shape to Brazil's people and culture.

This is a great immigration story that pairs well with "O Quatrilho," the story of Italian immigrants in southern Brazil. Tizuka Yamasaki directed a sequel, "Gaijin II," which will be released in March 2005. She has become one of Brazil's most successful filmmakers in the decades since the release of the original film.

Note: "Gaijin" means foreigner in Japanese and "Caminhos da Liberdade," the rest of the title, literally means "paths to freedom" in Portuguese. But "Liberdade" also refers to the central Japanese neighborhood in São Paulo around the Praça da Liberdade, just one subway stop south of Cathedral Square/Praça da Sé (we glimpse the "Liberdade" subway stop in this film).