Carandiru

Let's get things straight here, if you were drawn to this film due its comparisons to the equally magnificent City of God, you're going to be surprised. Aside from the fact that its a Brazilian film about criminals, there are few similarities. While City of God was an epic story of life in the slums of Rio De Janeiro, Carandiru is about much older criminals and the days leading up to the infamous Carandiru prison massacre.

However, this is not the non-stop assault on the senses of grim violence you might expect. In fact, only the last twenty minutes or so of the film deal with the massacre at all and the film instead concentrates on a much more human aspect to the carnage. Focusing on the character of the Doctor as he tries to raise awareness of AIDs in the prison, it revolves around his day to day life as he chats casually with the inmates, learning of their hopes, fears and more often than not, their reason for being in the prison in the first place. These are stories that range from sad, to touching to outright hilarity and you soon find yourself absorbed in this world of offbeat criminals, so much so that when the violence does erupt, it is all the more shocking for it.

There are differences to the normal, US prison drama as well. I'm not sure how the Brazilians run their penitentiaries, but here there are no uniforms and they are allowed many of the comforts of home, along with free reign of the prison yard. But these are still drab conditions, with multiple inmates crammed into a single room, sweltering in the intense heat of the tropical summer. And ultimately, the prison is a community, made of genuine individuals, rather than clear cut prison stereotypes. This is a masterful film, one of my top movies of all time.

Carandiru is a true hymn of humanity in all of us. What let the Brazilian riot squad shoot down over a hundred inmates was that following both prejudice and the professional drilling they had been subjected to, they regarded the rioters of 1992 as nothing but worthless scum. Bebenco does not defend his characters. Based on the eyewitness account of the prison physician, he presents us with assassins, murderers, robbers and drug-dealers who do not even claim they do not deserve their sentences (although many were kept in prison without convictions). What made them human was their continuous contact with the world outside. The visitation day scene is a memorable tribute to life in a truly Christian sense - everyone deserves to live and to hope not because of his own qualities or deeds, but because of the love others share for him. The character of the serial killer Dagger was essential to this purpose. His solitude in the midst of the modest pleasures of everybody else visited by his close ones was the first sign of the overcoming guilt which eventually took him to the preacher. Let this review not be understood as if the movie pursues to proselytize the viewers; I hope not to be too cynical to say that its prime purpose is to rejoice - to rejoice with the great diversity of human characters to whom Dr Varella and H. Bebenco paid their tribute.

Carandiru is the true story of the greatest massacre of prisoners in the world. It happened in 1992, in São Paulo, after a rebellion in the greatest Brazilian penitentiary. Doctor Drauzio Varella has written a successful best-seller about this sad event. The great Brazilian naturalized director Hector Babenco (from `Pixote', `Kiss of the Spider Woman', `Lúcio Flávio' etc.), with the support of a fantastic cast, presented a good movie about this wound in our society. The screenplay presents some personal dramas of some prisoners before the invasion of the prison by the Military Police and execution of one hundred and eleven (111) prisoners. The double Brazilian DVD is magnificent:, presenting not only the usual making-of, interviews, deleted scenes and errors, but also the TV News in 1992 after the slaughter. My vote is eight.

As a Brazilian, I saw on TV many of the things that happened inside Carandiru, the biggest jail in Brazil and maybe the biggest in Latin America. I can clearly remember the news where we saw the police invasion and the slaughter they made there instead of stopping the prisoners rebellion

I knew this fact would be shown in Hector Babenco's film, but I could never imagine it would be so strongly illustrated. It's pure violence and the audience gets really astonished. Although it's really sad and we can't avoid being sorry for those deaths and suffering, it's impossible not to like the movie. It's excellent.

It's important to say that the invasion is not the only fact that is shown. Actually the book is based in Drauzio Varela's book. Mr. Varela is a doctor who worked in the jail helping the prisoners. The book, that is called "Estação Carandiru" (Carandiru station - because of the underground station that is nearby) is a success in Brazil.

27-year-old Rodrigo Santoro is one of the best actors we have in Brazil nowadays. His talent on Brazilian TV Series have guaranteed him good roles in films made in the country and recently he has started an international career, once he'll be in "Charlie's Angels 2". Some other good actors like Milton Gonçalves and Caio Blat add more positive points to the production. Some others, unknown up to now, showed they'll probably have much success in the future due to their talent, like Lázaro Ramos.

Argentinean Hector Babenco directed 'Carandiru' with a great sense of art, talent and made his film probably the best one of Brazilian cinema this year.

My rate 10/10

Carandiru is a a very good film. I think it is not the best Babenco's movie (e.g. not so good as Pixote) but yet it is one of the best film I have seen during this last year.

In the first place, it should be remarked that it needs a lot of courage to put on screen the beautiful and crude Varella´s book on the day-by-day of prisoners of the Sao Paulo jail Carandiru (once the biggest jail on Brazil, now demolished). In particular the movie shows one the the darkest pages in the recent Brazilian history, namely, the massacre occurred in that jail in October 1992: during a rebellion, the police invaded the prison and killed summarily 111 prisoners. Not a single policeman was even injured during the action.

In order to understand the movie, I think is very important to stress how deep has been the relevance of this sad and cruel event in the slow evolution of the Brazilian society towards less barbarian standards. At the time of the massacre most of the elites, media and middle class supported the police action and only ten years later, in 2001, some of the authors of the massacre has been put on trial. In other words the Carandiru tragic facts of 1992 and the way they have been so differently evaluated here during these years, reveals in a tragic fashion one of the most explosive contradiction of the present Brazilian society, in which a large majority of the Brazilians is completely excluded and plundered.

The movie of Babenco show this clearly and powerfully. Babenco used different kind of approaches. Most of the time the tone of the movie is realistic even bordering a documentary, but there are scenes in which the movie becomes visionary.

I am not surprise that the film was not well accepted in the recent Cannes festival. Critics from the first world are not expected to know much about the actual situation of Brazil (euphemisticly speaking). The fact is that Brazil in the USA/Europe imaginary continues to be unfortunately the country of carnival, football and samba and dark crude point of view such as the one of Babenco tend to be considered as disturbing or worst boring. So, while in the preview session for the press in Cannes 2003 most of the comments were "too long", this nearly three hours movie is one most

seen of the year in Brazil.