Namba Santos plays an escaped slave who is one of many that settle in the northeast Brazil in an encampment they call Palmares in the 17th century. She is very authentic in her topless wonder, and after searching endlessly for any sign of her in the modern world outside of her sole uncredited appearance in the Portuguese drama Quilombo (1984), we began to think we weren’t watching film as much as peering through time to that very place. Her performance is that haunting, as are her tits. The battle for these ex-slaves to remain free is very moving, but really all we remember are Namba’s boobs.
