A traditional Italo-Brazilian neighborhood Bexiga, along with Belém, Brás and Mooca, was an important industrial place that in the earliest years of
20th Century attracted many businesses, an united community and was highly regarded back in those days. Lately, it's the place best remembered for having
the best pizza joints of São Paulo. But in the late 1960's and throught out the 1970's Bexiga has fallen down when its most influent residents moved to better
places, a government crisis that closed down many companies and what was left was a poor neighborhood, with empty spaces later occupied by poor or homeless
people. "Bexiga, Ano Zero" ("Bexiga, Year Zero") brings back (briefly) the importance it had in São Paulo's economy, its evolution and then sad downfall. And
as I usually like to do, an update: it's no longer a decadent place as it used to be but it's far from being what used to be in its inception: a place that
welcome jobs, nice housing places and a place where neighbors and kids got together to have nice chats on the street and play all the time they wanted.
Despite mentioning about economical and political crisis of its then era (1970's), those films were comissioned by the government itself, yes, the
military regime. By those films I mean a trilogy designed to present three neighborhoods depicted in a famous 1930's short stories collection composed by
António de Alcântara Machado named "Brás, Bexiga and Barra Funda" (the latter place, if it has a short film made I wasn't available to find. I wrote about "Brás").
And I've found "Bexiga, Year Zero" really sadder and depressive than Brás because unlike that place, Bexiga was downtrodden, emptied out almost like a ghost city
while Brás has become a overcrowded place that still offered places to live, plenty of jobs to provide to people from all over the country - lately, even foreigners
had small businesses in there. It's a mess to walk and live there but it has something to offer. Bexiga - though I don't know all that much - took some awful time
to regain momentum and become a nice place to live or go visit. Seeing those abandoned houses, all objects left or shattered, and people going through those houses and
buildings was just a sad reminder of a time when things were at its worst. But that's Brazil, progress and disintegration come hand and hand from time to time.
Those are hard times for everyone and that kind of view is most likely to happen whatever place whether being in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or elsewhere...but we'll
overcome. Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it...that's the lesson I could get from this documentary. It's not a film to like. It's a film to
remember the values and life we used to have when communities are united despite its differences, how things can all fall down if we don't take a proper care or if we have the support our powers of be. Watch and learn. 7/10
