In this movie, reality is combined with fiction. Telling a story that actually occured. There is a bandit who became a legend. For ten years the police didn't have the courage nor the power to end Lucio Flavio's infractions with the law. The life of a suburban youngster, bank robber and poet, specializing in running away from prisions and the authorities. In a early morning as cold as the knife of another bandit, Marujo, he was killed while sleeping.
The action begins with Lucio Flavio and Leice Killing two companions accused of betrayal. Later, Lúcio Flávio is robbing a bank, the police are torturing other delinquents who are searching for him. The police then go to question an old black friend of Lúcio Flávio and his family. Micuçu is put into jail. Shortly afterwards, Lúcio was also put into jail. There he is put into solitary confinement and subjected to barbaric torture and then escaped, thanks to an agreement with Dr. Moretti, one of the leaders of the Death Squad. This gives birth to a relationship that Lúcio Flávio will never be free of.
Lúcio Flávio, The Passanger of Agony, is a movie that has nothing to do with good bandits. When the times comes to rob, they rob. When the time comes to kill, the bandit kills. This movies does not defend the bandit. The movie's realistic intonation demonstrates that the bandit is like a delicate rope, doomed to break when a corrupt structure crumbles.
In accordance with the police, who sell protection to Lúcio Flávio, free again the reorganizes a gang and prepares for a more audacious attack. There is a battle for leadership between tte Death Squad and the lawyer, Bechara, who captures Lúcio Flávio, putting an end to his attack. Dr. Moretti acts quickly and Lúcio escapes to the centre of the city in a paddy wagon was taking prisoners to court.
At this point, after a series of betrayals, Lúcio Flávio, disillusioned, makes a trip to Minas Gerais, with Janice and their son, knowing he cannot put an end to his responsibilities. There, the hotel is taken over by the federal police, and Lúcio is again put into jail. He then decides to put the cards on the table and tells of his marginal experiences protected by the law or people of the law. He refuses do exchange his silence for a passport out of Brazil. Right before his assassination, he only had the time to tell one reporter of his relationships maintained with the police. In a certain way this interview gives birth to Lúcio Flávio, The Passanger of Agony. Disillusion feeding on another disillusion.
In Rio de Janeiro, Lúcio Flávio is like a case of mental paralysis. The police fear just the sound of his name. If a cinemagraphic producer goes to the Department of Puclic Security and asks permission to deal with a subject that is still taboo for the police, the answer is quite different. Unlike other marginals that have died, the memory of Lúcio Flávio did not receive an anecdotal treatment of "the tragedy of today of tomorrow's comedy". Lúcio Flávio will never become a comedy. For the police, he seems to be a person that indellibly hurts its virility.
Lúcio made me face a portrait of Brazilian society in a very direct way, without the necessity of facing problems of infancy, traumas of youth or existential preoccupations. Lúcio Flávio's comportment was not caused by internal origens. He is a product of social canditions that he had to face.
Lúcio Flávio is a different factor of dilenquency. You cannot say he is a cammon criminal created by social conditions. He had both a mother and a father. He was well-educated, enjoying poetry and painting. He was a middle class youngster sho, if had he followed the rules of society, would probably be living a normal life today. He chose the path of delinquency and ended up forever tied in the knots of this parapolice organization known as the Death Squadron.
Dr. Moretti who protected and permitted him to flee is based on supercriminals of the police. This shows up in everything Lúcio Flávio told José Louzeiro in their innumerable contacts that shows his absolute awareness of the complete impossibility for him to escape the vicious cycle in which he was trapped. At the same time it grave me the opportunity to make a film without mystery. When the film begins, one already knows that what one sees on the screen are living facts from the life of a man who is already dead. As we all know, in all police movies, the bad guy always dies in the end.

CAST
REGINALDO FARIAS - Lúcio Flávio
ANA MARIA MAGALHĂES - Janice
MILTON GONÇALVES - 132
IVAN CANDIDO - Bechara
PAULO CESAR PEREIO - Dr. Moretti
LADY FRANCISCO - Ligia
SERGIO OTERO - Nijini
IVAN DE ALMEIDA - Liéce
IVAN SETTA - Fernando C. O.
ALVARO FREIRE - Federal
PARTICIPAÇĂO ESPECIAL
GRANDE OTELO - Dondinho
STEPAN NERCESSIAN - Suicida
ÉRICO VIDAL - Klaus

CREDITS
Produced by H.B.FILMES
Story by JOSÉ LOUZEIRO
Screenplay byJOSÉ LOUZEIRO, HECTOR BABENCO E JORGE DURAN
Directed by HECTOR BABENCO
Photography by LAURO ESCOREL FILHO
Production Director CARLOS A. DINIZ
Edition SILVIO RENOLDI
Music by JOHN NESCHLING


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