One feisty father faces down adversity and comes up trumps

Even Joseph Jackson and Murry Wilson might have been impressed by the manic persistence of the father of two sons in Brazil named Francisco Camargo.

Jackson and Wilson provided the somewhat fearsome fatherly pushing that propelled their children to success in, respectively, the Jackson 5 and the Beach Boys. But they had nothing on Camargo, whose determination is both the most unnerving and the most touching thing about Two Sons of Francisco.

The movie tells the story of the rise of Zeze di Camargo and Luciano, a leading Brazilian country music duo. The two men, brothers and Francisco Camargo's sons, started out a very long way from stardom, and though their father was not the first to pressure his children into becoming entertainers, few have had so far to go and such daunting tragedy to overcome.

The film begins in 1962 in an impoverished-looking part of the state of Goias, in central Brazil, with Zeze (whose given name is Mirosmar) still in the womb, and Francisco (Angelo Antonio), a tenant farmer, hooking up a primitive radio. Francisco decides that his son will escape poverty and that music will be the way he does it.

The film, a huge hit in Brazil, feels most genuine when treating the family's early years. The young father sees the prize but isn't sophisticated enough to steer a path to it. In one amusing scene he takes Zeze (nicely played as a boy by Dablio Moreira) and a brother to play on a radio show, not realizing that the song they are singing would get everyone locked up. (One lyric goes, “Long live the armed forces and their tyranny.”)

Eventually, though, he recognizes his limitations and lets the two youngsters go off with a promoter. They find success but also tragedy; it will be years before Zeze and another brother, Welson (taking the name Luciano), try again. The film becomes less captivating in these later years, but the director, Breno Silveira, throws in a nice touch at the end, showing clips of the real singers, and their father.

Similar stories in the US tend to be turned into made-for-television mush. This one is manipulative in its own way, but it casts a sweet spell nonetheless.