Posted: 06/06/2004

Carandiru

(2004)

by Alexander Rojas

After seeing every episode of HBO’s great series Oz, prison films just haven’t quite lived up to the standards that Oahas created for me. However, if anyone could make a film to equal what Oawas or even surpass it, it would be the director who made the beautifully brutal Pixote. Over a year ago I heard about Hector Babenco’s latest film in years, Carandiru. This would be the harshest and most intense prison film imaginable. I was prepared and anxious to see Carandiru and once I finally got my chance, Carandiru proved to be a well crafted and entertaining film, but without much of the intensity and raw power that made Oz and Pixote so prominent in my viewing experiences. In a prison that is overcrowded by the thousands, how can so little happen.

Carandiru is set in Brazil in what is labeled in the film as the largest prison in South America. The prison was built to hold about 3,000 or 4,000 individuals, but during the start of the AIDS epidemic, the prison was overwhelmed with close to 7,000 prisoners. In order to treat the growing AIDS crisis in the prison a doctor was brought in to test and care for the ill. The doctor during this time came to know several prisoners as they opened up themselves to him, detailing stories of themselves and their innocence. Events soon escalate to a mass riot in the prison as a riot squad massacres over a hundred prisoners in acts of hostility and inhumanity.

Carandiru is based on a novel written by the actual doctor who treated the men of the Carandiru prison. The doctor was also Hector Babenco’s physician during his cancer treatment that kept him from filmmaking for so many years. After hearing the doctors stories in Carandiru, Hector encouraged the doctor to write his experiences into a novel and eventually make it into a film. The result is an effective and touching film that gives these men, who are labeled simply as criminals, an identity that makes them closer to human than monster.

The stories of these men unfold in flashbacks that take place before they were in prison. Whether they are being honest or lying about the events that they reveal comes into question later in the film. However, the film doesn’t seek to find out just how many men are actually innocent. It simply suggests many of them might be or they just might be liars. Some of them believe what they are doing is justifiable because of their status in society. In Brazil, poverty is rampant and many of the impoverished appear destined to lives of crime. What complicates the problem is a judicial system that ignores and moves on from these people who spend years in prison before even having a court hearing. Many get lost in the system without any chance of rehabilitation.

Most of my problem with Carandiru comes from a lack of truly sympathizing with any of the characters. They are made to be likable simply by their charm as in the character of Highness or with their sensitivity as in the characters of Lady Di and his lover, but not much else of their characteristics is developed. When one character is brutally murdered (one of two intense moments for me), I didn’t really care other than the fact that it visually appeared harsh. By the time the of the riot, I felt sorry for the prisoners, but anyone could have been killed and it would have not meant anything to me and I don’t think that’s what Hector Babenco wants his audience to feel.

Hector Babenco’s Pixote, reflected the orphaned and abandoned children of Brazil who took to lives of crime as a matter of survival. The film was extremely grim and devastating. These children had no hope and certainly no future. Any of those who even managed to survive to be adults only had a future in the misery of Carandiru.

Alexander Rojas is a film reviewer for Film Monthly.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com