Carandiru

This movie have moved me a lot. It is not a movie about the doctor who is going to carandiru prison to combat AIDS. It is not a movie about gay couple and their love. It is not about short stories of inmates life problems that took them a prison. It is about all of that and much more: it is a movie about humanity in the darkest of places with people with dark histories. And how they all deserve to live. I could not stop watching after first five minutes. I also wonder if the people in the movie were real prisoners instead of professional actors. The movie was so real, so grasping, and provided light, hope and intimacy which were brutally squashed by firing squad. Not a single moment was overdramatic or corny, there wss dignity about telling the story about one of most un-dignified places!@

The adaptation from the book of Drauzio Varella is a little humanist in a way, but it is still a realist movie. The performances are are in the most of it, very nice! Wonderful! The movie is very well produced, narrative is very interesting, we can have some good laughs along. It's almost like a movie-documentary.

When I went to the première of Carandiru, last movie of Hector Babenco (see "Pixote"), I have got great expectations. I have read the Drausio Varella's book "Estação Carandiru" (Carandiru Station) and, of course, I knew the ado caused by the real event portrayed in book and movie. Carandiru is the biggest penitentiary in South America, a complex with more than 7,000 inmates. Friday, October 2nd, 1992 was a dog day in the cells. In a facility known as "Pavilhão 9" took place a manslaughter where 111 cons lost their lives. Very close to a documentary, this movie shows what we desperately try to hide, the problem of torture and violence which stains our penal system.

I saw this film when I was in Brasil a couple of weeks ago (April 2003). It's so powerful. I imagine that characters and incidents were invented for dramatic purposes, but I don't doubt that the horror was any less than the film portrays. The acting was fabulous: it was invisible.

Babenco has managed to put the brilliant, powerful, tough yet tender Brazilian best-seller by Drauzio Varella into a movie that must have been very difficult to shoot but that was handled firmly, with courage, great care and talent. Excellent music and some outstanding performances, with special mention to Rodrigo Santoro and Maria Luisa Mendonca.

This movie shows us how was life in the Latin America's biggest penitentiary. Good story, good plot, high fidelity to the original story. 10 out of 10. The scenes of the inmates' slaughtering are just fantastic. It's real life.

Héctor Babenco is a great director, but I grew bored with Carandiru. It's overlong (2 hours 20 minutes; should have been 50 minutes shorter). And it's largely a parade of prison-movie clichés. You have the tough but fair prison director, Senhor Pires; prisoners divided into saints and scoundrels (the latter, naturally, meet all sorts of gory fates); the inevitable riot; the murderous response of the riot squad, etc. And it's told through the eyes of a doctor whose character lacks depth, and whose connection to the plot is tangential. Save it for free viewing on the Independent Film Channel. If you want to see better gritty, downbeat Brazilian films, I recommend Ônibus 174 (Bus 174) or Central do Brasil (Central Station) instead.