Os 12 Trabalhos

After the overrated "De Passagem" (2003), Ricardo Elias' second feature "Os 12 Trabalhos" is another missed opportunity to uncover a throbbing and controversial universe, this time the dangerous, fast-living world of delivery bikers who criss-cross the huge city of São Paulo: it's estimated there are around 300,000 of them rendering services, delivering from pizzas to legal and illegal drugs, with an average of two casualties DAILY.

Using superficial, obvious references to the Greek myth, Elias names his young protagonist Heracles (newcomer Sidney Santiago, an interesting face, but it's a one-note face and a one-note performance). He's an ex-inmate of a juvenile delinquency facility, and gets a chance to work as a delivery biker through the effort of his older cousin Jonas (Flávio Bauraqui, trying hard to breathe some life into the film), also a biker himself. Heracles must perform "12 labors" (deliveries) in a single day in order to be officially hired by delivery firm, called -- oops -- "Olympo Express". The film follows Heracles around the city in what's pretty much an assemblage of loose independent episodes: the people he meets, the dangers and surprises that go with the job, the racial and social prejudices he has to face in his hardly Herculean (sorry, that was inevitable) tasks.

In his two features, director Elias seems to focus on two main interests: to portray the "nice guy" side of socially rejected characters (the two boys from a favela in "De Passagem", the bikers here) and his endless fascination with the complex, Babelian metropolis of São Paulo -- he's in obvious awe of its gargantuan size (10,000,000 people), contrasts, demographics and geography. Unfortunately, Elias and his DP Jay Yamashida fail to convey the excitement that we expect from a biker slashing across the perpetually car-packed avenues; the motorcycle scenes are technically ho-hum and remarkably plodding, which is a sort of feat (a SLOW film about bikers??). And we know, don't we, that "nice" protagonists seldom make an interesting movie. We get to meet a myriad of supporting characters that are so little time on screen they're mostly stereotypes, leaving us ultimately indifferent.

Furthermore, Elias indulges in obvious, tired, in- your-face film references, including the literal rip-off of Truffaut's "Les 400 Coups" celebrated finale, and the exhausted "Are You Talking to Me" mirror routine from Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". What can you say about a film in which the best single sequence (the cat-chasing) is a rip-off of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade's seminal short "Couro de Gato"? The dialog is pedestrian, the direction of actors is highly irregular (most of the young actors seem amateurish, fortunately the experienced ones know what to do) and the visual style flat (the dialog sequences suffer from banal soap opera-like direction and editing). On a positive note, the multi-style soundtrack selection gives the film a much needed energy boost, except for the misplaced use of Edu Lobo & Chico Buarque's marvelous song "Valsa Brasileira".

Despite all of the above, "Os 12 Trabalhos" is not a BAD film; it's just very disappointing and ultimately unnerving if we consider what a missed opportunity it is, how little advantage it took of the potentially controversial and thrilling subject, how it wasted the zillion script and visual possibilities that were at the director's disposal. Maybe on his next project Elias will seek new collaborators (especially other writers and cinematographer) to shake up things a bit -- up to now, his sincere, honest, "nice guy" films lack boldness, stamina and risk.

As the 1959 Marcel Camas film 'Black Orpheus' and its 1999 Carlos Diegues remake 'Orfeu' were Brazilian popular life retellings of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in Rio de Janeiro, this film, 'Os 12 trabalhos,' is (more superficially, however) a São Paulo retelling of the Labors of Hercules. Incidentally 'Black Orpheus' ('Orfeu Negro') was a seminal "crossover" film which for many US and European film viewers must have been their first glimpse of Brazilian life and exposure to the musical sound of Brazilian Portuguese. The idea of using the colorful favela world of Rio's urban poor to recreate an ancient myth was a powerful one. The remake sets Camus' effort in perspective by being more ethnically authentic and more totally Brazilian. In recent years Brazilian film-making has become increasingly visible with the success of 'Doña Flor and her Two Husbands,' the Oscar won by 'Central Station;' some may have seen 'Lavoura Aracaica', or 'Madam Satã', or (more widely shown) 'City of God,' an ambitious personal and generational history set largely in the favelas. Thus we approach 'The 12 Labors,' even without knowing the language, with a certain background and set of expectations.

It may seem a letdown to know that the twelve "labors" given to Herakles (the handsome Sidney Santiago) after his release from Febem juvenile detention consist simply of complications that arise as he learns the ropes as a messenger boy, but we remember that the "hell" of Black Orpheus was a big bureaucratic office building. This time there's no romance (the girl who kisses him is just his cousin's ex-girlfriend), and more rap than samba, São Paulo instead of Rio. Things are at a lower key. The tasks (a misdelivered envelope, an escaped cat, a grumpy man) can hardly be called "Herculean," and Herakles never seems in a life-and-death struggle to complete them: hence the parallels with the Greek myth are pretty weak. (If as an online note says there are 300,000 messengers in São Paulo and two of them get killed in traffic accidents every day -- we do see two of them, one fatal -- so the stakes for Herakles might have been made considerably higher, the pace faster.)

The result is appealing, richly human but unspectacular. However, the effect of the new Brazilian cinema can be felt in the fluent vernacular portraits of urban under- and middle-class people, the clear sense of living, pulsing city life. Nice features are the disenchanted voice-over with its poetry and its extra data on characters, the sparky dialogue spoken by Herakles' cousin Jonas (Flavio Bauraqui), who got him this job, and a sequence bringing to life a comic strip Herakles has drawn in his notebook. There are over a dozen other characters, colorful and attractive: the film is as much a string of vignettes as a coming-of-age tale. The story ends on a somber, tragic note that modulates into something deeper with a nice ending sequence of a long night ride ending in a dawn walk on the beach and a look at us that recalls the finale of 'The 400 Blows.' No doubt Elias and Santiago will be heard from again, of that we can be pretty sure. Nice music by André Abujammra , editing by William Dias, and images by Jay Yamashita. Very cohesive, very watchable, and, as so often with Brazilian films, brimming with life.