Os Carvoeiros

A combination of four documentaries about the hardships of Brazil, "Estamira" (about life in the garbage dump), "Garapa" (about hunger) and "Os Carvoeiros", this one is not about work in the coal mines of Brazil, but about modern slavery, where the slave is paid to pay back to the boss by paying rent and buying food, and is always in debt, and that is when they are not hungry, without education, without hope, without expectations for themselves, all that is left is to dream of something better for their children... A documentary that denounces.

A documentary that shows the living and working conditions of coal miners in Brazil, who put the environment and their own health at risk to feed the country's steel industry.

A beautiful film which examines the subject matter from two distinct angles. Basically, it's about the production of charcoal in Brazil. On title cards interspersed throughout the film it delineates the economic and political pressures affecting charcoal production in Brazil, as well as the effects of the industry on the environment - particularly the Amazon forest. The main body of the film focuses on the people who live as migrant workers producing charcoal. The film spends time with them at work and at home. We are able to gain glimpses of their lives and the struggles they face. OS CARVOEIROS (aka THE CHARCOAL PEOPLE) is a poignant and simple film which works effectively on both the socio-political and personal levels.

This documentary didn't click for me immediately. Except for a few screens of text the narrative is related entirely by the charcoal people and landscape. The situation the film conveys is stark and simple on a factual level - The World demands iron and Brazil's expendable labor force and vast forests provide the charcoal needed to extract it from the ore. However, to tell the story in a meaningful way the film makers deliberately take us on a slow tour of the harsh reality of life in Brazil's charcoal producing regions.

We watch extremely hard working people bake in the tropical sunlight and smoky charcoal fires. They tell us about their lives while beautiful cinematography shows us their dreary yet visually poetic daily duties. One subject mentioned multiple times is the possibility that literacy and formal education might spare their children from their own fate.

The charcoal people aren't the only humans suffering on Earth right now. Nevertheless, after seeing this film you'll think more specifically about their plight. We all lose as they're forced to tear down more precious forest land to produce iron for the rest of us and feed themselves.

The most amazing thing about this documentary is that it was made at all, i.e., that the companies that produce charcoal used to make pig iron for (primarily automobile) manufacturers in the US, Europe, and Japan allowed the filmmakers access to the laborers who work for them at all, since they surely would have realized that a documentary about deforestation surely would not have been sympathetic. That having been said, this documentary makes it clear that deforestation is a problem to which there is no easy solution. As devastating as deforestation is, it provides a living to those who perform the work, and, as one worker after another states, this is the only work they can get. (A problem, by the way, that I am sure is not limited to Brazil.) The interviews are especially poignant. We see a lithe 76 year old man working as hard as his younger counterparts. We learn of the exploitation of these workers by some employers. We see a 16 year old wife of one of the workers who looks as if she is 30, with 2 children and another on the way. It also becomes abundantly clear that if deforestation is stopped, something for which the film makes a plea, then the Brazilian government will have to find an alternative for these people. This should not be missed.