This program gives an overview of the obsessive preoccupations of Brazilian authors who, no matter which topic or genre they have chosen, always, even if only in subtext, portray the unbelievable social and ideological differences that define not only Brazil but all of South America equally



The sublime beauty of the Brazilian bossa nova infuses the film Os Desafinados (Slightly Out of Tune, 2008), directed by veteran film maker Walter Lime Jr. It is a coming-of-age story about a group of friends and takes place against the backdrop of the political unrest of the 1960s and 1970s in Brazil. Young musicians form the band Os Desafinados and become part of the Brazilian bossa nova musical movement. The film is a personal dedication by the experienced filmmaker Lima Jr. to this original, cool and sexy jazz style which was born outside of the US. Walter Lima Jr. (1938) began his career in the mid 1960s and belonged to the Brazilian Cinema Novo generation, to which he is still faithful. His film Brasil Ano 2000 (1969) was nominated for a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Lima’s film tries to unify the powerful musical aspirations of the heroes with social realities but the dramatic development begins only in the second part of the film after a somewhat lengthy beginning and middle. The storytelling framework is a contemporary portrait of the group Os Desafinados developed through the character of the filmmaker Dico (Selton Mello) who recorded the band’s every sound and move. Lima uses Dicov “film“ to portray Rio at a time when it was discovered to be the cradle of a great new jazz form … Unfortunately he did not succeed in capturing the scorching vibe of Rio. The city is in fact best utilized as a setting for emotional scenes between the hero Joaquim (Rodrigo Santoro) and his wife Luiz, warmly played by Alessandra Negrini. The band, with its lyrical jazz approach, manages to impress the American producer Leon (David Herman) and sets off to New York with great hopes.

Unlike in Rio, Lima manages well to evoke the New York jazz scene in which Os Desafinados achieved success - in a brilliant sequence in the legendary Village Vanguard. Director of photography Pedro Farkas brilliantly merged the documentary historical material with his own cinematographic style so that the combination of fiction and visual documents creates an outstanding effect. Emotional catharsis in the film takes place in New York’s Central Park when the boys discover Gloria (Claudia Abreu), a Brazilian singer in exile, who then becomes their mighty muse. Two members of the band, Davi and Joaquim, fall in love with her. The band returns to their home country and their return is painful marked by violent political events. Lima’s actors are perfectly cast and the team is dominated by the brilliant Abreu and the charismatic Santoro. Os Desafinados is a beautiful and melancholy introduction to this program of Brazilian films - it is a film of reminiscence with beautifully evoked designs from that time. Part of the music used in the film and written by Wagner Tisoa is sung by the talented daughter of the director, Branca Lima.

Food is another name for power in the culinary revenge drama Estomago: A Gastronomic Story (2007) by Marcos Jorge. The story takes place amid two time periods in parallel: the hero, Raimondo Nonato is currently in jail and in the past he came literally from nowhere or, as he is teased “from the jungle”, to the city. He started at the bottom washing dishes and frying chicken croquettes in a small diner. Soon he is “discovered” by a local prostitute Irija (Fabiula Nascimento) who takes sexual pleasure in food and then he gets hired by the owner of a fine Italian restaurant. Raimondo advances, but considering the dramaturgical structure, it is obvious a crime will happen. At a jail in which, by European and American standards, there is an unthinkable level of self-organization, Raimondo soon climbs the ladder of power and becomes a “king” thanks to his cooking talent. Jorge’s gastronomic story offers us a playful portrayal of a desperately poor man who discovers that talent is a certain way to success but who simultaneously remains as emotionally naďve as a child, which causes him disappointments in love and finally leads him to a life of crime. Estomago won many awards at the film festival in Rio, including the audience’s award and an award for leading actor Joao Miguel.

Jorge Duran, author of the film Proibido Proibir (Forbidden to Forbid, 2007), is a Chilean director living in Brazil. This exciting drama is his second feature film and it won many awards at South American film festivals and one of the main awards at last year’s festival in San Sebastian. The story takes place in Rio and focuses on a love triangle between three students. The main character is Paulo (Caio Blat), a student of medicine, whose personal motto is identical to the anarchy exclamation of the student movement in 1968 - it is forbidden to forbid or proibido proibir. Paulo constantly smokes pot and uses pills and in the opening sequence arrives to work in the hospital completely stoned. In spite of that he manages to brilliantly answer all of his professor’s questions and discovers that the maid Rosalina (Edyr Duqui) has leukemia. His best friend and roommate Leon, played by Alexandre Rodrigues, who became famous after starring in Cidade de Deus (City of God, 2002) by Fernando Meirelles, is a politically conscious student of sociology who studies children who live in favelas and is madly in love with Leticia (Maria Flor), a student of architecture, who comes from a decent catholic family. At the moment Paulo meets Leticia she becomes a forbidden object of desire but he is aware that in his own life he cannot use his anarchy motto because he does not want to destroy his friendship with Leon. The film does not stop with this love story, because Paulo becomes close to the dying Rosalina and together with Leon and Leticia tries to save Rosalina’s youngest son from the favela where he saw his older brother murdered by indifferent and corrupt police. After the police manage to kill the younger boy and injure Leon, the student trio tries to escape from the mess. The gravity of the situation forces them to grow up suddenly, which gives them the strength to resolve their love problems as grown-ups. The relationship between two so dissimilar young men, who even have different colors of skin, actually offers an optimistic view into the horrors of an everyday life burdened by social distinctions. Leticia, on the other hand, is a symbol of a love for life that nevertheless cannot remain untouched by cruel reality. The end of the film is left open and takes place in a huge but destroyed modernist building at the edge of a jungle, which symbolizes the unresolved Brazilian divisions of the world between favelas and modern architecture, people with no future and those who were lucky enough to grow up in decent social surroundings.

In her film Narradores de Jave (The Storytellers, 2003) director Elian Caffe deals with the Brazilian provinces, which she portrayed in her acclaimed debut Kenoma. As the title suggests, The Storytellers deals with the Brazilian tradition of story telling that tries to preserve a way of life that is slowly becoming history. Technological development destroys traditional ways of life and beliefs and Caffe treats this topic through a combination of magical realism and contemporary drama. The story revolves around the village of Jave in Bahia. It is threatened with destruction because of some plans to build a dam for a hydroelectric power plant. The villagers have the original idea of using the only literate member of their community to “scientifically” document the historical importance of their village and thus prevent the building of the hydro power plant. The only one who can fulfill this task is former postman Antonio Bia (Jose Dumont), who’s quite unpopular in the community due to previous dishonest acts. Soon, the stories of the villagers, due to the subjectivity of memory, become contradictory.

Unfortunately, Caffe did not succeed in balancing the dramatic and lyrical structure of the film. The stories are too long and she forgot about the dramatic urgency of saving Jave.

The oldest film in the program, Central do Brasil (Central Station) was directed in 1998 by Walter Salles, an experienced Brazilian director, author of the popular film The Motorcycle Diaries (Diarios de motocicleta, 2004), starring the talented Gael Garcia Bernal, who in the meantime became an international star. The heroes of Central do Brasil are Dora (Fernanda Montenegro), a former teacher who earns her living at the main train station in Rio De Janeiro writing letters for a small fee for the illiterate people, and the nine year old boy Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira). Dora is a bitter older woman who hates her clients and their love problems. Josue’s mother is a client of Dora’s for whom are written letters to the boy’s father. Soon, the boy’s mother dies in an accident in front of the train station and Dora, plagued by existential problems, takes Josue in almost against her will and sets off on a long journey to the far northeast of Brazil in search of the boy’s father.

Salles’s film is an emotional but not a sentimental story, a melancholic Brazilian road movie with discreetly inserted social and cultural comments from the author. Stylistically the film bears the stamp of Vittorio De Sica because it is a study of a search for family ties, and in a wider sense is a story about personal and national hope. And even though the story does not have the expected emotional climax, the viewer, unlike the boy, unmistakably realizes that it is a journey which will decide whether Josue will join millions of other Brazilian children living on the streets or if he might get a chance to grow up with a family. One of the leading Brazilians, Fernanda Montenegrom, carries the film with her fantastic interpretation of a bitter and harsh woman who transforms into a vulnerable human being while young Oliveira, chosen amongst 1500 candidates, is unbelievably natural and does not count on winning the audience’s sympathy. Central do Brasil was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film and Fernanda Montenegro as Best leading Actress. The film also won the highly prestigious Bafta film award as well as a Golden Bear in Berlin.

Proibido Proibir by Jorge Duran and Central do Brasil by Walter Salles are the best films of this program, but only if you see all of them - which is definitely worth the effort of every film lover - the program gives an overview of the obsessive preoccupations of Brazilian authors who, no matter which topic or genre they have chosen, always, even if only in subtext, portray unbelievable social and ideological differences. Those differences define not only Brazil but all of South America equally: the cold brutality of life in the favelas, with children living on the streets, drugs, crime, and the cruelty of police, are contrasted with the lives of the middle and upper classes who abide in a parallel world devoid of such horrors. These contrasts are almost a second name for Brazil: there are huge ideological, political, social and cultural differences in this vast country in which co-exist unbelievable urban agglomerations with areas in which people still fight for their survival like Don Quixote -- by telling stories. Whether it is a film about bossa nova, a love triangle, a gastronomical crime or the search for a father, the problems of this vast and fascinating country are in the hearts of all of these authors. (Alemka Lisinski)