Once the insurgency is crushed, the Party is split on how to interpret its legacy. The majority believes it was a grave mistake and what happened was not a protracted people's war but a Foco, a mere private crusade with no meaningful participation from the masses. Indeed, this is also how non-Communist accounts see the conflict. A minority faction believes it was a success and had to be replicated, with one article published at the time saying "many Araguaias are needed". The Lapa massacre reshaped the Party and the minority's view took over, preventing a critical review of the events and enforcing a mythicized narrative. This was followed by the Party becoming even more moderate than the orthodox wing it split off from, fully embracing participation in the democratic transition government in the 80s. They backed down and moved slightly to the left after harsh measures were used against a general strike in 1986, but otherwise remained in the paradoxical position of glorifying the Araguaia war and following a nonviolent course.
Much is discussed about why the guerilla failed. Its location wasn's as good as thought; this is briefly mentioned but makes sense, as after all, BrasÃlia and the nearest state capitals have little strategic value, the real demographic centers were too far away. It was too small of an area to make a difference, too. The fighters were few and inexperienced, and the Party lacked qualified cadres. Most importantly, popular support was not achieved and only a few peasants joined the rebels. Non-communist accounts attribute this to the peasantry being deeply religious and totally indifferent to Marxism and the passions of urbanites from the core. Rampant factionalism and thirst for power are also blamed for the far left's failure in general: groups split off into factions at the slightest disagreement and militants clung on to their posts even when that was detrimental to the larger movement and they should have accepted criticism and allowed others to take over. Some activists then complain that communist parties are attempting to appeal to society at large rather than speaking directly and exclusively to the proletariat.
Overall this is not worth your time. The Mao bit is the only fun thing I learned from this, though I was also informed of a lot of obscure organizational history and Maoist theory. I failed to understand quite a lot of it because of how much jargon is used. As a film it fails to impress unless you're a Maoist fellow traveller, and most of the historical reenactment part is awful. It also failed to make me feel sad for the fighters. It's a good thing they were crushed.
One thing about jargon: I once used to buy a Maoist newspaper. Hardcore Maoists use a lot of uppercase-initiated words, literary conventions and wordings that feel like you're reading a translated Chinese article from the height of the Cultural Revolution. The result, if not byzantine, is at least clunky and out of place. This movie is actually light on that, mostly using just general Marxist jargon. But unless you're already part of the authors' ideological circles you won't understand much. I didn't.