Cobra Verde (1987) on Netflix
The bandit Cobra Verde oversees slaves on Dom Octávio Coutinho's plantation. After the baron's three daughters bear his children, Coutinho sends him to West Africa to reopen the slave trade.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.9/109,324 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the late nineteenth century, Francisco Manoel da Silva's ranch in Brazil is ruined by drought, and he takes work at a gold mining company. When he learns the company is exploiting him financially, he kills his employer and takes to robbing stagecoaches as the bandit Cobra Verde. In town he subdues an escaping slave by force of character, which impresses the sugar baron Dom Octávio Coutinho, who hires the stranger to oversee the slaves on his plantation without knowing he is the notorious bandit. After Coutinho's three daughters all become pregnant, and the baron learns who his overseer really is, he sends da Silva to West Africa to reopen the slave trade, a task the bandit expects will cost him his life.
Cast
- Guillermo Coronelas Euclides
- Nana Agyefi Kwame IIas Bossa Ahadee
- Nana Fedu Abodoas Yovogan
- Kofi Yerenkyias Bakoko
- Kwesi Faseas Kankpé
- Cego Oliveiraas Himself
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cobra Verde (1987)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Werner Herzog's original cinematographer on Cobra Verde, Thomas Mauch, walked out after a perpetual torrent of verbal abuse from Klaus Kinski, and Herzog was forced to replace him with Viktor Růžička.
- The novel behind Cobra Verde, Bruce Chatwin's The Viceroy of Ouidah, was itself based on the Brazilian slave trader Francisco Félix de Sousa and his role in helping King Ghezo overthrow his brother Adandozan as King of Dahomey with the help of Ghezo's Dahomey Amazons.
- Klaus Kinski disagreed with Werner Herzog over which locations would suit the film and took a trip with friends to remote places that fascinated him, including the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Cape of the Sailing on the Guajira Peninsula, while Herzog chose Villa de Leyva and Valle del Cauca.
