Cinema Brasileiro, Mercado Ocupado

A very comprehensive, highly informative and thoroughly depressive short documentary, this forgotten piece by the great director Leon Hirszman shines a light about the challenges faced by the Brazilian cinema and its filmmakers and artists who try to life through their art but can't quite survive or make ends meet due to the tough, unfair and unbalanced competition coming from foreign markets. Mr. Hirszman analyses the economical side of the art and how our cinema loses space in its own market, but before he reaches to the sad breaking point about such facts, he presents the history of Brazilian cinema from its inception, showing the difficulties and the progresses made through decades until he reaches the then critical 1970's.

Narrated by writer Ferreira Gullar, a decade after the film's shooting (since the film was shelved for slightly unknown reasons and was never released until 1985 hence why the movie is mostly a slide show rather than having actual clips moving and either its original soundtrack was lost), the documentary covers the birth of Brazilian cinema, its appeal to an already limited public in the early years, silent era and transition to the sound, and the first studio films such as Atlântica and Vera Cruz, and the many up's and down's from the precarious national system versus the highly appealing foreign markets.

I'm gonna stretch out a little far from what the movie presents and proposes. True back in 1975, and an even sadder true several decades later, the Brazilian cinema struggles to conquer audiences thanks to the limited number of releases each year goes by, facing the everlasting foreign invasion with the exclusive domination by Hollywood and their blockbusters.

Sure, there's laws and regulations which grant a certain number of nation releases and the finances destined to such movies, and it's hard to mantain the competition with some balance - the director presents the charts and numbers and also points out to some other advantages movies from all around the world in terms of getting a release without spending much while our own cinema costs some (un)fair share just to get a decent release and get some return.

If by one side we lose space in our territory because of limited releases, an ignored fact comes from audiences as well with a complete apathy towards Brazilian cinema and the usual cliche that says the movies are bad and of poor quality and that it's hard to feel the same enchantment coming from an American or European film. The piece doesn't discuss quality and audiences preferences but that also hurts those films since they hardly ever get their budget back unless some "City of God" or some "Elite Squad" comes along and everyone's interested in it. Outside of that realm of film that owes its style and appeal due to action and violence, it's pretty hard to attract audiences - not that it doesn't happen because it does, once in a while, but artistic films or the ones who get excellent reviews hardly ever make money and usually they get limited releases, barely spending a month on screen. And the sad part is that Brazilian cinema is one of the greatest in the world yet it fails to generate domestically, and this apathic feeling can be sensed outside as well (it's just feeling I have that we are not praised well enough in most foreign markets).

And to whom do we blame for such pitiful scenario? The investors and sponsors of those exact same movies: the government. Yes, that's right. Although there's laws that provide for culture and cinema; the National Day that celebrates Brazilian cinema with countless releases and re-releases coming with a special ticket prize; but that same politics also the ones that ease down the foreign intrusion where they don't pay anything to get wide releases and our own brand has plenty of taxes and bureacracy that cannot be dodged. And to one internal box-office hit that comes a whole year there are a dozen from Hollywood that blows them out of the water.

At the end of it all, Mr. Hirszman talks about some possible changes and possible sollutions but truth is that we came a long disastrous way and we're far from the end. He didn't live to see the closing of budget incentive in the early 1990's which literally closed down film production to a critical breaking point of zero percent of release; didn't live to see the cinema retaken in the mid-1990's where major productions got accepted by critics, public and resulting in three Oscar nominations in the period; and the arrival of promising filmmakers each year goes by. Had he lived a little longer he'd be proud to see an interesting evolution of Brazilian cinema in one way, but on other way there'd still be problems faced by artists trying to work, create and survive without the necessary means and tools. Personally, I don't think it's all that much a matter of the public funding and government financing anymore; the public perception over our cinema is the one that needs some change and reavaluation, and that's the real challenge and I know cause I've been there, I was one of those judgemental folks and now I'm one of the biggest enthusiasts of Brazilian cinema, I've been learning a lot over the years.

As said it's a sad real story and one that hasn't changed much over the decades, and this forgotten piece made in 1975 just goes to show plenty of facts and information, and it's up to viewers to create a debate, to figure out why we are so far behind in certain aspects of cinema or even accept the failure. And don't think for a second this is just a Brazilian problem, many other countries face the exact same thing, in a lesser degree or higher. All I can is that a change must come and it can start with you reading this review.

Find yourself some time to appreciate our great cinema, just once. There's so much be seen, amazing things you wouldn't believe it. 9/10.