In 1972, Brazil was in the darkest days of the military dictatorship that had seized power eight years before. Working for Italian television, de Andrade embarked on a re-creation of the Inconfidencia Mineira, the Mineiran Conspiracy, fledgling groups of rebels based in Minas Gerais in the late 18th century who questioned Portuguese colonial authority. The film alternates between scenes of clandestine meetings and later interrogations and even torture a pointed reference to what was happening in Brazil at the time. At the center of these events is Tiradentes (beautifully played by Jose Wilker), a lower class rebel whose defiance of the authorities at his trial would make him a national symbol. Yet the suffering of Tiradentes allows the better-connected upper-class members of the conspiracy to go largely unpunished, another aspect of the story with uncomfortable relevance in the 70s. The Conspirators is living history in the most exciting sense of the term, a look at the past that clearly becomes a mirror for the present.
