Brazilian Cinema

So, I try to watch as many things down here in Portuguese as possible, to help me learn the language. This has led to an exploration of the films of Brazil. They're all pretty good, and you—the non-reader—deserve to hear about them.
Without further adieu....

PIXOTE

Pixote is about the life of street urchins in Sao Paulo in the 70s. The film starts with some anthropologist-looking guy explaining that most kids under 18 who commit crimes are sent to boys reformatories, which are pretty lawless and corrupt places. The first part of the movie explores life in the reformatory, centering around an extremely young boy by the name of Pixote. Friendships, homosexual relationships, and power dynamics are all examined. Eventually, after realizing some of the boys are being taken away by the police to be murdered, a group of the boys decide to escape. The next part of the movie details their adventures as fugitives and street kids in Sao Paulo and Rio, relying only on one other for support.

What I liked: The free-wheeling plot. The first part of the movie is entirely about the reformatory, while the second follows the boys as they become thieves, drug dealers, and, eventually, pimps of an eccentric aging prostitute with syphilis. You don't really have any idea of where things are going, which is a relief from formulaic movies, and it also makes the movie feel authentic.
-The superbly developed relationship dynamics. The bond that gets formed between the protagonists in the reformatory and is tested and strengthened as they become fledgling criminals on the outside is multi-faceted and complex. You find yourself sympathetic to their struggle, both rooting for their success in illegal and dangerous ventures while lamenting their situation and hoping they find a way out of their hopeless lives. Even though they have had to grow up very fast, the movie constantly reminds us that they are still children, which makes their stories that much more poignant.
What I didn't like: Not much. The movie is very long (almost 3 hours), but it's necessary for how well-developed the characters are. I think the first portion of the movie at the reformatory could have been cut short, but I like how the film completely shifts direction once the boys escape. It felt very contrary to the seemingly arbitrary plot structure of most western movies, and I enjoyed it very much.
-An uncomfortable amount of shots of naked prepubescent boys. I dunno. At a point, it seemed gratuitous, although it's probably metaphorical; a physical analogy for the degradation theses kids are constantly being subjected to.
Favorite Part: After losing almost everything, Pixote, for the first time, breaks down and cries. A prostitute tries to console him, eventually offering him her breast as an erotic gesture. Pixote suckles her breast like a baby, until the prostitute becomes uncomfortable and screams at him to get out. This scene is so heartbreaking, I would have to say it's quite possibly one of the most powerful moments in all of film.

O Cheiro do Ralo ("The Smell of the Drain")

From Wikipedia: Lourenço (Selton Mello) is a lonely figure, who buys used goods from people going through hard times. His profession has made him insensitive to his seller's conditions or personal stories. Lourenço's lack of emotions makes him deal with the world as a collection of objects to be bought. His main pleasure has become to conduct some perverse power games with his sellers. The planned life of Lourenço is interrupted when he falls in love with a waitress's butt. As any other object his main desire is to own it. The movie conduct us through Lourenço's mind using his as a narrator while his desire for power grows. The name of the movie comes from an insistent bad odor that comes from Lourenço's office restroom. It represents the self-awareness of Lourenço's condition, which he unsuccessfully keeps trying to hide.

What I liked: The tone. This movie is perhaps one of the blackest comedies I've ever seen, so much so that I wouldn't bother to argue with someone if they called it a drama. A character study that revolves around the misanthropic whimsies of the protagonist, the movie injects subtle levity by exposing us to Lourenço's cynical and manipulative ulterior motives as unwitting characters praise his ostensibly charitable actions. This is the funniest movie I've ever seen about such a depressed, malicious, unsympathetic person.
Also: Selton Mello. He's one of Brazil's top actors, and for good reason. He nails the role of Laurenço, allowing us just enough glimpses of a human side to stop us from hating him completely. His monotone voice overflows with bitterness and resentment, but we also sense that he has good reason to be so callous.
What I didn't like: Not enough character development. After Cheiro was finished, I remained very curious about what motivated/lead our protagonist to be the way he was. Certain things are hinted at, but nothing is ever definitively presented as the cause for our hero's malaise and maliciousness. This creates a sort of dissonance between the audience and the protagonist; we're expecting to finally, eventually understand the source of Lourenço's malcontent, but it's never really resolved. For as wonderfully nuanced as Lourenço has become by the end of the film, I still walked away from the movie a bit frustrated with how little I understood about how he came to be the person he was. On the other hand, I always appreciate a movie that leaves you thinking about it, so I suppose that's just another part of Cheiro's charm.
Favorite Part: After obsessing about the ass of a waitress at a local launchette, Lourenço comes in one day to declare his love for her, except he declares it to a different waitress. The waitress informs him he has the wrong person. Puzzled, Lourenço asks her to turn around and bend over. From the distinctly less curvaceous behind of the new waitress, he realizes it's not the waitress he wanted. All our hopes for an emotional awakening from Laurenço are dashed as we realize, in actuality, he really only ever cared about the waitress' bottom, and not her as a person, as we were being led to believe.

Cidade dos Homens ("City of Men")

The sequel to 'City of God', picks up where CG left off.

From Wikipedia: Best friends Acerola and Laranjinha live in the favellas of Rio de Janeiro and have been raised without their fathers. They are turning eighteen as a war between rival drug gangs begins around them. Each discovers things about his missing father that will compromise their solid friendship.
What I liked: Everything. City of God is one of my favorite movies, and I went into this one hoping for more of the same. I was not disappointed. Gritty cinematography, the visceral feeling of Rio imbued into every second of the film, likable characters, and a buncha drugs and violence....what's not to like?
What I didn't like: Nothing. Everything about this film goes.
Favorite part: Opening scene, where the shot-caller favella drug boss decides to descend from the favella roof-tops for the first time in a long while to escape from the summer heat at the beach. Ace, our protagonist, decides to go to the beach too, taking his 2 year old son that he's supposed to be watching with him. There's a mix up, and Ace's son ends up with the drug-boss and his crew. In a hollywood movie, there would be a big problem from this careless action...but drug dealers and regular people are both part of a community that takes care of itself, and the resulting situation only serves to develop characters and their backgrounds. We are introduced to the entire neighborhood through Ace as he searches for his son, and within the first 20 minutes of the movie we are familiar with the personalities and motivations of the various characters residing in the favella. Great job establishing characters right off the bat.

O Que é Isso Companheiro? (English Title: "Four Days in December")

Set against the backdrop of the conflict between students and Brazil's military dictatorship in 1969, this movie tells the true-life story of a group of young brazilian revolutionaries who kidnap the American ambassador to Brazil. The movie centers around a young man named Pedro Cardoso who, sick of the apparent ineffectiveness of protests and government brutality against it's participants, joins a group of militant activists. The film follows Pedro's involvement with the group, from robbing banks to finance their operations to the kidnapping of the ambassador and the subsequent friendship that develops between them. Selton Mello is in it too.

What I liked: The nuanced characters. One of my favorite things about this movie is that it avoids completely painting the revolutionaries as the heros of the story. The special police guy who is tasked with rescuing the ambassador after his abduction is constantly questioning the ethics of the brutal tactics he is told to use, and by the end, we almost have more empathy for this initial antagonist than we do for the revolutionaries themselves. A hollywood movie would delineate the characters into clear good-guys and bad-guys. O Que Isso makes no such attempt.
What I didn't like: Too long. The movie is almost 3 hours, and dragged on in some parts. At certain points I was asking myself, 'when is this gonna end?', and I actually watched it in two-settings, pausing it half-way through and finishing the next day. This is not to say the movie is boring, but it's long, and it feels long. A small complaint, in the larger picture, but still a complaint.
Favorite Part: When the secret security officer in charge of tracking down the revolutionaries speaks with his partner about his faltering faith in their work...a job primarily involving torturing political dissidents. This moment completely obfuscates the remaining shreds of 'good' and 'bad' that have steadily been being broken down throughout the film. It flips the traditional protagonist-antagonist relationship for the audience, and makes us doubt the characters we have previously been sympathizing with. Great humanizing scene.

Carandiru

This movie is about one of Sao Paulo's most notorious prison's, Carandiru. In 1992, in response to a prison riot, military police stormed the jail and massacred 111 people. The movie is told from the perspective of a doctor, who initially starts going to the prison to test the prisoners there for AIDs. He's intrigued by all the interesting characters that reside within the cells there and ends up getting a job there. From the doctor's perspective, we learn about the stories and lives of the various different eccentric criminals that are incarcerated there. The film culminates in the infamous 92 massacre, with commentary from the prisoners that lived through it.

What I liked: The way the story was executed. The doctor protagonist plays a mostly passive, nonjudgmental role, which allows us to become absorbed in the individual stories of how the inmates ended up in jail, which makes us empathize and care all the more about what happens to them over the course of their stay in Carandiru. The individual stories are all interesting and humorous, and the convict's reflections on their lives are both funny and touching, completely humanizing them. We are forced to recognize that, while not perfect, convicts are people too. Also: Wagner Morra gives a great performance as a crackhead named Zico.
What I didn't like: How occasionally it feels like the film loses focus. With the long litany of stories, sometimes the film doesn't feel coherent...just a collection of unconnected events. Everything comes together in the end, however. Also, this is another 3 hour film, so it occasionally feels too long. Still, compelling and touching. Knowing that it was based on true events only makes it that much more tragic.
Favorite Part: The beginning of one inmates tale. A convict named Chico recounts how his love of women landed him in jail. His story starts with him pulling up to a random bbq. He drinks a beer on the hood of his car and watches a pretty woman dance seductively to music blasting from a small radio. He spits some game, and then proposes to her. She says she already has a fiance, who returns from playing soccer to see what's going on. Chico whips out a gun and pops off a couple shots at the fiancé's feet, making him run away. Laughing, Chico tells the girl that if her fiance really loved her he wouldn't have run away from a few puny, misplaced gunshots. The girl gets in Chico's car and they drive away. This was the biggest boss move I've ever seen in cinema, hands down.

Se Eu Fosse Voce ("If I Was You")

A husband and wife going through some rocky marital times say the same sentence ("If I were you") during an argument and wake up the next morning with their bodies switched. The comedy then follows the couple as they try to get through each other's day, learning firsthand about what each other's lives are like. Sort of the Brazilian version of Freaky Friday.

What I liked: The movie's approach to sex. Maybe I'm just a pervert, but throughout the movie I was wondering if the husband and wife would have sex with one another, and consequently I ruminated on what it would be like to have sex with yourself in the body of your boyfriend/girlfriend. Personally, I don't think I could do it; I'm a narcissist, but not that big of a narcissist. I have no desire to explore the sensation of what my own cock inside of me would feel like. Still, I appreciated that the movie didn't try to side-step that inevitable aspect of theoretical body-switching.
What I didn't like: Completely formulaic. The movie evolves pretty much exactly as you would expect, no punches pulled, no twists, nothing different or interesting, or things you haven't seen before. It's a lighthearted romantic comedy, and doesn't really try to be anything more than that. The characters have problems, gain insight, change for the better, solve their problems, reconcile, and are better off than when they started, the end. The jokes are rudimentary: the man suddenly acting effeminately around his macho buddies when the wife is in his body, the wife threatening to cut off their daughter's boyfriend's dick when the man is in her body, etc. You know exactly what's going to happen before it does. Still, it's a nice little brainless movie to check out if you don't want to think about things too hard and want to chuckle a bit...maybe a good movie to snuggle up and watch with your girlfriend/boyfriend.
Favorite part: When the husband and wife finally have sex! The movie quickly cuts away as soon as they start kissing, and the next scene is them asleep in bed the next morning, but for some reason I had been obsessing over whether or not they would fuck for the entire movie, and just to finally know that they did was such a relief in some weird way that it had an almost cathartic effect on me. I let out a deep breath, and was happy I didn't have to get mad at the movie for dodging the most obvious issue of hypothetical husband-wife body switching.

Tropa de Elite 1 & 2 ("Elite Squad")

The BOPE is the Rio de Janeiro equivalent of a US SWAT Team, arguably maybe a bit more badass. They're the most well trained, efficient, serious, highly-regarded military police down here. They shut-down large-scale drug operations, have shoot outs with drug-dealers in the favellas, and basically handle any crisis situations that may arise at any given time. The first Tropa de Elite film follows a BOPE captain, Nascimento (played by Wagner Moura), and his proteges, chronicling the daily life of the elite squad: busting drug dealers, getting in gun-fights, and trying to reconcile their duty to protect and serve with the corruption that permeates the higher-up political figures they report to.

The second film picks up where the last one left off, but more explores the ubiquitous corruption inherent in Brazilian politics and it's effect on the community, as told through the personal story of Nacimento. Both of these films are great, action-packed thrill-rides (I hate that expression, but that's what these movies are: mafuckin ILLY-ILL THRILL-RIDES son!), as well as being intelligent, well-acted, and insightful. Based off a book about the BOPE, the movies were huge box-office successes and became a cultural phenomena. Tropa de Elite 2 is premiering on a TV movie network soon, and there are ads for it plastered all over Sao Paulo as if it were opening for the first time in theaters....TDE2 also holds the record for the highest-grossing film in Brazil, partly due to director Jose Padilha's hiring of a security team to monitor the editing process to ensure the film didn't leak and get bootlegged. The Tropa de Elite movies are perhaps the most popular films in Brazil.
What I liked: The balance between realistic and entertaining. When I initially saw the first Tropa de Elite in the states I wasn't really impressed, expecting more of a ridiculous hollywood shoot-em-up. However, after being down here, becoming acquainted with the culture, and watching it again, I really appreciate the realistic picture the movie paints while also being an action movie. The second film (which I like more than the first) focuses more on corruption and politics, while still being fast-paced and exciting. After watching it and talking to Brazilian's about it, what I inevitably heard from everyone was '...and you know what the craziest thing is? It's all 100% true.' How unscrupulous and conniving the antagonists are in the movie...it's mind boggling to think that what happens in these movies actual happens in real life. Corruption is a huge problem in the political world here in Brazil, so seeing a movie confront it via an action-movie format is just...delightful? No. Awesome.
What I didn't like: Nothing. People who haven't been to Brazil might feel these movies are a little soft, if they're expecting the typical hollywood fanfare with a bunch of explosions and graphic killing, but if you can look past that, you'll find two really great films. Definitely check them out.
Favorite Part:

(Context: basically, this is where Captain Nacimento beats the shit out of a dirty congressman and tells him if he messes with Nacimento's family he'll kill him. Swag.)
~

That's it for now! I have another 7 or 8 films, but I feel like these are enough to digest for the moment...I don't want to overwhelm anyone. Check these guys out now and I'll post Part Deux in a little bit.
At the moment, I'm working on some posts about Sao Paulo Slang, Telenovellas, Brazilian Voo-Doo, Teaching English, and a long overdue recount of Festa Junina. Unfortunately, I've been very busy with work and having adventures, so I haven't had the time to finish and polish these other pieces. I made a resolution to get back to this blog, however, so hopefully I will start updating more often...I have a tendency to break most of my resolutions, so we'll see how that goes...
Ate a mais...
-JD