Bob Spit – We Don’t Like People

Comic artist Arnaldo “Angeli” Filho is a legend in Brazil. His comics, imbued with punk and counterculture, attracted a great deal of attention during Brazil’s military dictatorship and became part of 1970s pop culture. Now a documentary film is to be made portraying Angeli. When he allows himself to be interviewed, with great resignation, he reveals honest insights into his creative crisis and announces that he no longer wants to continue his rebellious work. He wants to have Bob Spit, his most successful comic character and his alter ego, die in comic form. As the interview continues on a meta-level, Bob Spit himself travels through a devastated world marked by violence and pop music-loving mutants. When Bob learns of his impending death, he tries to reach his creator before it’s too late. At his side: two emaciated fanatics who worship Angeli as a god. “Punk is not dead!” becomes the mantra of the disparate group, while Angeli seems to believe in it less and less. The parallel storylines become progressively blurred. Angeli’s world becomes detached and takes on surreal features, while Bob does everything he can to prevent his creator from drawing the last page of his comic.

Already back in 2008, director Cesar Cabral tackled Angeli’s work and had his comic character Rê Bordosa dance across the screen in the stop-motion film of the same name. The “dirt” and roughness of the comic originals are rather missing here, but Cabral is able to counteract this with his skilfully exaggerated style. Despite the mixture of road movie and documentary, “Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People” always feels stylistically coherent. Cabral won the 2021 Contrechamp Award with “Bob Spit” at the Annecy Festival. (Dorian Duric)