Teremos Infância

"Teremos Infância" ("We'll Have Childhood") is a fascinating film that presents the point of view of Arnulfo Silva, a common man who shares part of his life story as a neglected kid, abandoned early on in life and how he managed to survive into adulthood, still trying to cope with the society challenges. And as someone who lived a very unfortunate and unpriviliged life, Arnulfo reveals a great deal of eloquence and a great sense of speech. Here, he talks about his past, the tragedies in his life and also shares a little how he conducts his everyday life while living in the poor districts of São Paulo.

Arnulfo is the driving force of the movie, there's nothing else there to make you immersed and impressed all the way. The short documentary is well-filmed, presenting several important landmarks and locations of downtown São Paulo; but the ultimate message comes from the man himself talking about how he view the society and the cause of education and in what ways children should be educated - and he says that exactly when there's two poor kids playing around him and at the end of the movie they return in what I say is a heartbreaking moment when the interviewer asks to one of them to say something to the camera and he just can't find the words to such moment. It makes us think about how the situation didn't evolve much from the time of Arnulfo, since he has a certain degree of education and manages to survive despite the outcomes he faces and not living to the fullest, but then we see those abandoned kids and we ask ourselves what had become of them, if they had a future or not. All that is certain is that they had a childhood. Not exactly the one most of us have, not getting all the things they needed or wanted but that's life; but the essence of being a kid, to get involved in plays, being playful with their friends or relatives, that essence exists (and we see some brief moments of that). It doesn't happen in the way we want to see but that's how things go.

For the mature viewer comes the questionings about the role of family, society, governments, teachers and social worker services and how all those parts are connected in order to fulfill their duties with poor abandoned children who don't have anyone to look out for them and when there is control it usually comes in the form of social reprehension because by that time they're in the world of criminality, already broken and more lost than they ever were. This movie is a proof that sometimes you can survive it all. Arnulfo did it. 8/10.