Carandiru Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)May 11th, 2004
CARANDIRU
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B
Sony Pictures Classics
Directed by: Hector Babenco
Written by: Hector Babenco, Victor Navas Fernando Bonassi, book "Carandiru Station" by Drauzio Varella
Cast: Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos, Milhem Cortaz, Milton Goncalves, Ivan de Almeida, Ailton Graca, Maria Louisa Mendonca, Aida Leiner, Rodrigo Santoro, Gero Camilo
Screened at: Sony, NYC, 4/22/04
In the current election campaign in the U.S., George W. Bush need not prove that he's for the death penalty while John Kerry favors the ultimate punishment only for terrorists. How will Kerry convince potential voters that he's not therefore a wimp? That could be difficult, given the trying job of using rational arguments on a vast populace, but if only all Americans could see Hector Babenco's "Carandiru," they might realize that long prison terms not necessarily even longer than twenty years which, I believe, is the maximum one can get in Brazil are a terrific alternative to lethal injections. The 7,500 prisoners in the now-defunct Carandiru Station (destroyed in 2002), the focus of Babenco's picture which will open at New York's Tribeca Film Festival on May 7, seem even to have more freedoms than
most prisoners in our own country. Though this largest penitentiary in all of Latin America is a maximum security set- up, the prisoners appear to spend most of the day in the Sao Paolo sun, playing soccer, hanging out, spending most of their time with members of their own cliques. The racial divisions plaguing prisoners in American jails seem to be non-existent in a country whose inhabitants are a wide diversity of colors, and even queens are not persecuted or looked upon with contempt by the straight inmates.
"Carandiru" is one of the most energetic films in the past couple of years, and could be considered in a way a sequel to Fernando Meirelles's "City of God," the long-running pic filmed in Rio where the young hoodlums rule, violence is commonplace, and a rivalry turns a favela (slum) district into a war zone. Where "City of God' gives us insight into the backgrounds of criminals, showing us how they inevitably wind up incarcerated, "Carandiru" spends less time flashing back to incidents in the prisoners' lives as it's more concerned with the kinds of societies the unlucky 7500 people construct for themselves while waiting for the expiration of their terms of 5, 10, 20 years for murder, robbery and rape.
While Babenco's story is based on an actual catastrophic occurrence in 1992 in which riot police storm the facilities and senselessly massacre one hundred eleven inhabitants therein, Babenco, together with his co-writers Fernando Bonassi and Victor Navas use composites typical of this and other works of fiction.
Using humor to relieve the tensions and ultimate carnage, Babenco takes us into this world that few readers of film criticism have had to endure. Carandiru has a warden who roams among the prisoners with just a bodyguard or two and is always referred to respectfully as "Sr." Pires (played by Antonio Grassi, who could be a clone of Al Gore). Authority figures like Pires are rarely seen: The prisoners have formed their own government. The principal fellow who anchors the story is The Doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos), based on an actual fellow who came to the jail to do his best to combat AIDS, and who counseled his clients without morally judging them though one can scarcely see how he could afford so much time for each given the large population of the heavily overcrowded institution. He deals with some who brought the disease into the facilities from the outside, and others who contracted AIDS through sexual encounters in Carandiru although this is simply hinted at.
Since life at Carandiru seems relatively peaceful throughout the film not that the hostilities are what you'd find on the Amtrak commute to Greenwich CT the revolt at the conclusion comes as a surprise, one which indicates that the police riot squad which used their machine guns freely against unarmed, cowering prisoners are the ones who should be behind bars.
While Roles like Ezequiel (Lazaro Ramos), Deisdete (Caio Blat), Zico (Wagner Moura) and Moacir (Ivan De Almeida) are strong, Vasconcelos's portrayal of the doctor is of course sympathetic on the one hand but one wonders why he wears a perpetual smile (submerged contempt?) and how anyone can
act so naive.
While my esteemed colleague Ed Gonzalez (Slant Magazine) writes that the film is no better than the popular HBO series "Oz," I'll have to take his word for this as I believe that all motion picture drama should be seen on the big screen, and therefore I have little access to cable channels. Unlike "Oz," "Carandiru has English subtitles, easy to read. The Portuguese, even as spoken by the mostly unlettered population, sounds mellifluous.
Sao Paolo has the highest crime rate in the Western Hemisphere, not because the punishment for being caught is not a severe as those dished out in the States but because conditions of the poor as we see in just a few shots of the favelas are so miserable. If you want to see more about these conditions, rent the videotape or the DVD of this director's stunning "Pixote" about an abandoned 10-year-old street criminal who pimps, sniffs glue, and murders three people before the finale. Do you think the kid did this because he knew he'd get no more than twenty years if caught?
Rated R. 142 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
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