Divina Previdência

To whom we blame society's problems when it comes to solving our own problems: do we blame people, ourselves or the system? Our tragic hero in this dark humored and realistic story is Antonio (Filipe Tenreiro), a man suffering with some terrible disease that left a huge injury on his face and he's trying to access his earned welfare benefits from the social services.

But when he arrives there, due to lack of an ID and other documents that can prove who he really is in order to receive the benefits, he is given a list of places and procedures to follow to later on get back there and claim the welfare. But it's a long bureaucratic road and he's losing his temper and little by little losing himself.

Acclaimed director Sergio Bianchi sure knows how to created stories that reflect with exact accuracy and detail the obstacles faced by many Brazilian out there, from all walks of life and social classes, races, genders and identities. If the drama is always on the surface, he always finds a way to inject some humor in it, plenty of acid criticism about social relations and how the politics and the economy are a fundamental issues in everyone's lives, and he also knows how to criticise the false morality from the middle class. With "Divina Previdência" ("Divine Welfare", a play of words changing "Providência/Providence" with "Previdência/Welfare") he shows the typical problems of the common men, the hard working men who struggles against bosses, companies and institutions to have their rights earned and validated.

Antonio's story is a tragic one. He's not allowed to have a voice in society (and Bianchi does not give him any lines, we can only hear the social service workers and some opposed characters towards the end) and he's all lost in a world of papers, documents, long lines of poor people like him who need assistance from the government since they're no longer able to continue to work. It's a system that drives people crazy and one must be tough to get across the whole ordeal.

But for every tragedy, with those with eyes to see, there's also humor albeit a very dark one. Antônio keeps losing his fight not just because of the chaotic government system but also because of himself in some situation that could be avoided. And another voice that appears as background is from famous police radio host Gil Gomes narrating the endless story of another tragic unemployed man like Antonio and Gomes repetitive way to tell the story as he was known for makes it all more annoying to Antonio and gives us some humor.

Returning to the original question, all sides have their fair share of blame and it's incredibly difficult to pinpoint sollutions on how to solve everything that goes wrong in society.

We can try to stop blaiming and start changing ourselves, sometimes the group also changes, but hardly ever the system changes unless great drastic measures are taken or when society sees it that it's about to collapse and crack down for good then maybe the powers of be try fixing things. Bianchi is very hard on his questions and challenges with his films (such as "Cronicamente Inviável", "A Causa Secreta" or "Romance"), but he has all the valid and poignant points. This deep-rooted social/economical problematic of which Brazil is involved ever since it's discovery will always be a challenge to us. His characters often create ideas, theories, parables to justify how society is, criticising it very harshly yet they don't much around it to change or to cause some form of revolution, because when they do disaster takes place. We are all learning on hard ways but we are always allowed to try.

A cinema of quality is the one that allows you to see the world both as it is (reality) and as how it could be (dream). This one is part of the former with some small hints of the latter presented through a sequence where two movie characters interact with Antonio. As a comprehensive piece of reality that makes viewers question everything that's been presented, for its enormous cinematic qualities - as usual with the director - I can strongly recommend it. Sure it's something you see it everytime on the news but it's never told in such a similar fashion and aesthetic. 8/10.