The Second Mother (2015)

It is a testament to the delicacy of Anna Muylaert’s “The Second Mother” that when Bárbara (Karine Teles) tells her household’s longtime live-in maid, Val (Regina Casé), that she is “part of the family”, the statement is simultaneously truthful and condescending. Val is part of the family, and not just because she so often hovers in the orbit of Bárbara, and her husband Carlos (Lourenço Mutarelli) and son Fabhino (Michel Joelsas), fixing dinner and cleaning up, but because her relationship with the teenage Fabhino appears, frankly, more intimate than does Bárbara's. Of course, there are always lines that Val cannot cross, like that doorway between the kitchen and the dining room, or the backyard pool that is a shimmering testament to the elite, mystical boundaries representing the divide between economic classes. Someone will have to break those invisible lines, of course, and the culprit turns out to be Jéssica (Camila Márdila), Val’s daughter.

If Val is, as the title implies, like a second mother to Fabhino, she’s like no mother at all to her own daughter, who has been living in India with her father and shows up in Sao Paulo, intent on enrolling in the city’s most exclusive university to become an architect. With no home to call her own, Jéssica first moves into her mother’s small room before the family immediately takes to her allows her to not only stay in the guest bedroom instead, but to sit at the table designated for guests and even eat hallowed ice cream. She is the obligatory narrative bomb that goes off, exposing rifts in the entire household operation, intrinsically bringing the silently suffering union of Bárbara and Carlos to something like a noiseless head. Indeed, the relationship that briefly emerges between Jéssica and Carlos suggests something much more melodramatic, and much darker. But Muylaert ties off the angle quickly.

Instead, “The Second Mother” maintains a wistful tone without ever becoming saccharine, revealing itself as being as much a story of a daughter’s love for her mother as a mother’s love for her daughter. Jéssica can’t figure out why her mother subjugates herself to this way of life and her mother can’t figure out why her daughter won’t. In so many ways, Jéssica is already more assured in who she is, even as she’s still trying to figure herself out, than her mother. And that is because Val has just sort of unconsciously assimilated with the family, and Casé's wonderful performance quietly conveys how easily she accepts her place, not out of resignation but routine; this is the way it is because this is the way it has always been. If anything, she goes about her mundane daily tasks with something much closer to joy than agony. It is why she feels such pain when, in an early scene, Barbara dismisses her gift of a coffee set.

And Val never really reaches a point where she has to change because of some dust-up with Bárbara and Carlos. Even if the living situation becomes rocky with Jéssica’s arrival, the narrative never takes the ultimate decision away from Val. No, Val, with a crucial assist from her daughter, figures things out for herself, even if the end leaves you with the knowledge that she has not figured it all out. When Val finally sets foot in the pool, which she continually claims she will never do, it’s a moment where, perhaps conditioned from hundreds of other films, I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall. It never did. I was glad it did not. She earned the respite.

Elite Squad (2007)

“Elite Squad”, a stylistic descent into the drug wars of late 90’s Rio de Janeiro, is narrated by Roberto Nascimento (Wagner Moura), a captain in BOPE (Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais), a military unit of Rio’s state police. These voiceovers are omnipresent, beginning to end, and make absolutely clear the film’s point-of-view. While there is the concept of an Unreliable Narrator, in which the credibility of the person speaking is compromised, coloring the film in his or her own un-trustworthy light, Captain Nascimento comes across as an extremely Reliable Narrator. I believed everything he told me; it’s just that everything he told me left me wondering if he was the hero he thinks is.

His voiceover is entirely free of doubt. As he takes us through the dizzying inner-workings of the Brazilian police force and those they typically keep in line by letting them do whatever they want so long as the cops on the beat get paid, Nascimento sounds like a guy writing a tell-all book after the fact. He is not seeking truth because he already knows the truth. He knows all the cops in Rio are corrupt; he knows the drug dealers rule the favelas; he knows the rich Rio kids who smoke dope are no better than the drug dealers they buy it from; he knows that BOPE, and BOPE alone, is the city’s savior, That makes him sound like a one dimensional character, and, rest assured, he is, even when the film segues to his personal life where a baby, as it must be, is on the way, prompting to Nascimento to ponder, as he has to, retirement.

This is stock, no more, no less, existing as motivation but betraying the emptiness underneath all the movie’s gloss, and its unchallenging nature in a seemingly limitless situation that would seem to have all sorts of angles. And it’s all conveyed, of course, in Shaky Cam Cinema, as are the action sequences, naturally, and everything in-between. These jittery frames are not intended to emblemize anything, they just are, an empty stylistic device that (probably) inadvertently hones in on the ethics of all the people involved.

All of Nascimento’s problems in the home are merely a narrative ruse for him to train a couple replacements, newbies coming into BOPE with, well, if not an innocence, necessarily, an inquisitive attitude, a chance for “Elite Squad” to pose some questions and seek some answers. Neto (Caio Junqueira), however, is pretty much a nonentity. André (André Ramiro), on the other hand, bears promise, particularly because a character who seems more willing to step back and consider, evinced by the way in which he moonlights as a law student. This puts him in a class with those rich kids, including Maria (Fernanda Machado) who works at an NGO helping kids a nearby favela. He doesn’t tell her he’s a cop, because he can’t, because to do so would put her in a jeopardy .

This leads to classroom scenes where André’s fellow students lash out against the police and he shouts back at them. What’s interesting is these scenes are not discussions; there is not back and forth; there is no examining each side of the issue; it is mark your line in the sand and don’t come across, or else. And that, frankly, is “Elite Squad” in its entirety,

And by staking its claim with Nascimento – that voiceover – it essentially falls on the side of BOPE, whether it intends to or not, brought home in the training sequence that kicks off the third act which could have been cribbed from a hundred other boot camp movies, and that concludes with its members literally invading the favela, as if it’s war, which it is. And it becomes that Machivellian idea of how war cannot be avoided, only postponed to the advantage of others, and so the Tropa de Elite may as well just get on with what will come anyway.

Friday's Old Fashioned: Rio 40 Graus (1955)

“Rio 40 Graus” opens with an aerial shot of Rio de Janeiro, pushing past the Corcovado and toward its favelas, the slums inhabited by its (much) less prosperous citizens, and director Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s film closes with a shot inside the favelas, in the midst of a samba, before the camera rises up and out of the slums, to take in the whole of glittering Rio itself. These bookend shots remind us that despite the efforts by so many to keep the favelas out of view, or, at least, keep the favelas out of view in their own minds, they remain right there, on the edge perhaps, but part of the same city nonetheless. Inhabitants of the favela live in Rio just like the affluent who chill on Copacabana, just like the local politicians who scheme and cajole, directly in plain view of the good ol’ Statue of Christ. That’s not to suggest that “Rio 40 Graus” is enraged with its titular city. There is anger, yes, and it percolates and it occasionally bubbles over, but there is love too, a love for Rio, and for Brazil, and its culture. So much, in fact, that it wants to use this cinematic platform as a means to argue how that culture belongs to all.

The film opens inside the favela where five young boys, all peanut sellers, depart their homes, wading into Rio, peddling their products. Each boy is plagued by his own problems, whether it’s a once-great trombonist for a father who has devolved into destitution and alcoholism or a gravely ill mother. These bits of characters are not, mind you, introduced to engender dramatic payoffs, but to set mood. “Rio 40 Graus” is very much of the neo-realist movement, a quasi-documentary, though one often overlaid with music, typically more uplifting or sweet than ominous. Life may be hard, but the spirit of the people here remains intact. That smells suspiciously of sentimentality, sure, but Santos never panders, never comes close, instead allowing his film to intrinsically argue that life itself automatically allows for such duality.

As they journey into Rio, the youngest boy, in a splendidly jarring moment that seems to transition like a magic trick, winds up in the green of the forest, with animals all around, as if he has been teleported to the Amazon. It is the city zoo he has wound up in, but Santos doesn’t clue us into that right away, preferring instead to revel in the boy’s eyes, alive with wonder, as he drinks in the sights and sounds all around him. Alas, his palpable joy is stripped in an instant when a security guard boots the boy before immediately ushering other kids, kids very much not of the favela, right on in, the class divide rendered starkly, painfully. And that’s how “Rio 40 Graus” will go, following these boys from place to place, even as it occasionally takes time for vignettes, or even side stories, like the melodrama of a pregnant young woman and the father-to-be wrestling with whether or not to get married. Even if these scenes are shot in the same plainspoken style, their mood is more befitting of a soap opera, as is the subplot of a local politician’s daughter being fixed up with a sinewy deputy minister at the famed Statue of Christ. There, in a laugh out loud moment, the deputy conspicuously checks out the young lady’s backside, indifferent to his towering Redeemer.

This journey to the famed Statue keeping watch on Rio is indicative of the overall film, moving from famed locale to famed locale, Sugar Loaf Mountain to Copacabana and beyond. This is not, however, a mere travelogue. Each of these places represents an odd kind of democratic meeting ground, where the poor and the rich are allowed to intermingle, even if the rich laugh obliviously, or turn their nose up, at the poor, and the poor know they don’t really belong there anyway. Of all the locales, the famed Maracanã stadium becomes the most crucial, with a championship game between the home team and another team contested. If anything stands for everyone, it is Brazilian futbol, though even here, we quickly learn, the higher-ups will always hold more sway. The team’s beloved best player is sidelined by the whims of the owner who is determined to thrust a new, inexperienced if promising player into the spotlight. Eventually the owner is proved right in his seemingly idiotic decision, a darkly comic reminder that good fortune falls upward toward those in power, allowing them to consolidate it. That consolidation of power is also evinced in a local gangster who wants control of the peanut racket, leading him to try and chase down one of the favela youths infringing on his territory, which ends tragically, abruptly, so much so that you might not believe it just happened. But it did, and the world keeps turning, indifferent. Santos juxtaposes this moment with a big goal at the Maracanã, rendering the thunderous cheers spectacularly hollow.

Despite the melancholy of this moment, and of others, the film ends on a festive note, essentially transforming into a musical as it returns to the favela where the locals, gearing up for the Brazil Carnival, erupt into a samba. It is not a moment that forgets what came before, but that remembers despite the power and wealth tipping toward those outside favela, its dwellers, despite all their problems, retain the right to Brazil’s culture and traditions. A little earlier, the trombonist father explains to a favela visitor that “Everybody heard just my trombone when my band played.” It’s a great line, and he underscores it by ignoring the drink and momentarily unwielding a few notes on his chosen instrument. But it’s a line that also echoed in my head as the movie concluded, where as everyone sang and danced the samba, you could, for a few moments, only see Rio for the favela.

The Man Who Copied (2003)

“The Man Who Copied” (2003) opens with a concise illustration of not only the economic pressures facing Andre (Lazaro Ramos), a nineteen year old high school dropout living with his mom in Porto Alegre, Brazil, but the exacting, precise manner in which he goes about dealing with this everyday pressure. In the checkout line at a grocery store, as the clerk scans items, Andre realizes he won’t have quite enough cash to pay for it all. He analyzes what he can keep and what he can put back in order to make the payment. It sounds simple, but this scene goes on for a couple minutes, and it swiftly establishes director Jorge Furtado’s m.o.: a film which scrupulously examines every detail and which focuses, above all else, on money, and how it is of such mind-numbing importance to those who don’t have it and of such little regard for those who do.

After all, Andre, as we quickly learn, is a but a mere photocopy operator, which we see as he goes through a meticulous demonstration of his job, reciting in voiceover every last detail of how the copy machine works, which sounds mundane, but is actually thrilling in a kind of souped-up vérité. In fact, nearly every line of dialogue in the first thirty minutes is Andre’s narration, like he’s a Brazilian Henry Hill, which, in a way, he is. The film is an honest portrayal of Brazilian working class told through so much snappy editing, pop music, even occasional animation. It’s like The Dardenne Brothers crossed with Scorsese. And it works. You are roped into Andre’s plight, even as you learn he is going “Rear Window” too, spying on his neighbors in the building across the street, and in particular, spying on Silvia (Leandra Leal).

His courtship of Silvia is conventional in that bumbling, Alvy Singer-ish way, in which Andre has to conquer his nerves even as he occasionally slips into fantasy. Their romance blossoms, however, because he follows her to the clothing store where she works, acting as if he’s interested in buying a nightgown for his mom. It’s $36, however, which he doesn’t have. But he becomes convinced this purchase is the way into Silvia’s heart, underlining how money changes everything, and when his shop gets a color copier, and he finds himself entrusted with a $50 bill by his boss, he becomes a counterfeiter.

Here, “The Man Who Copied” begins to turn, leaving its Dardenne influence in the dust and just adopting Scorsese in full, transforming into a full throttle variation of a crime thriller in which Andre will go to any length to save Silvia from the life that increasingly becomes not exactly what it seemed. It’s quite the tonal shift, swaying from hyper-realistic to excessively outlandish, which might yield accusations of an Identity Crisis, but that’s never really the case. Furtado knows what he’s up to, and he knows that’s what driving these characters isn’t a sensation of greed so much as the unsettling realization of this is what it takes. To escape the place they don’t want to be, simply having love or a desire for something better won’t do; no, you need cash, and a lot of it, and quickly.

Yet as his characters are swept up in this monetary monsoon, increasingly doing bad things as a means to a lavish end, Furtado can’t quite stop loving them as much as he did in the first half. Reasons are laid out for doing what they do but he still refuses turning them into outright outlaws. It’s as if the final scene, predictably set beneath the open arms of Christ the Redeemer in Rio, really is meant to serve as forgiveness.

Bus 174 (2003)

“The question is will I live? No one in the world loves me
I’m headed for danger, don’t trust strangers
Put one in the chamber whenever I'm feeling this anger
Don’t wanna make excuses, cause this is how it is
What’s the use? Unless we’re shooting no one notices the youth.”
-2Pac, Me Against the World

Even though 2Pac wrote those lines to describe his uniquely American experience, they nevertheless echoed in my head throughout José Padilha and Felipe Lacerda’s extraordinary 2003 documentary “Bus 174” because of how aptly 2Pac’s thoughts and feelings toward a society that willfully turned a blind eye toward people like him, and then blamed all the ills of the world on people like him anyway, matched up with the plight of 21 year old Sandro Rosa do Nascimento.

This is not in any way to suggest that Sandro was a hero. Far from it. “Bus 174” refers to the public transit vehicle the 21 year old Nascimento hopped on a June afternoon in 2000, intending to rob its passengers, only to have police descend, triggering a standoff between Sandro, the local cops and eventually BOPE, the Brazillian military police, that ended, expectedly, with Nascimento’s death and, tragically, with the death of one hostage, Geisa Firmo Gonçalves. And while Padilha and Lacerda necessarily and effectively give full weight to the agonizing hostage situation, their interest is tied less to what Sandro does on that bus then what brought him to that bus in the first place, and how what transpires aboard it becomes a product of the society that raised him, evinced in the breathtaking opening aerial shot that moves from the stacked-on-top-of-each-other slums to the city.

In his absence of an upbringing, where he hit the streets at an early age after witnessing his mother’s murder and never knowing his father, we are shown how Sandro belonged to an entire forgotten social group, one labeled “The Invisible Kids” by a sociologist interviewed. These are the many Brazilian children, we are told, whom society acts lie do not exist, so many of whom wind up on the streets, turn to crime, get placed in overcrowded jails where guards beat the inmates rather than offer any structural correctives, so that when they get out, or escape, they return to precisely the previous life they led. Padilha and Lacerda interview several of these kids, inside prison and out, and by examine their plight too, you are left with the idea it could have been anyone in that bus, that if someone else had been caught on a different bus at a different time of day, the same scenario would have unfolded.

The footage of Sandro’s standoff, all of which is culled from the copious local media that was on hand to document the event, provides what at first seems like an incredibly intimate examination. Until the hostages, interviewed after the fact, reveal they were instructed by Sandro to act as if they were under considerable duress when he had no intention of hurting them, an attempt to get the authorities to give him what he wanted so he could make an escape. In that way, and until the doubly tragic conclusion, it was all a show, one which Sandro seems determined to play to the hilt. Early on, he takes a towel from a hostage and wraps it around his face, concealing his identity, though he quickly lets that towel fall away. And though he occasionally re-wraps it around his face, he mostly dispenses with it, content to let the authorities see him, to let all of Brazil see him. It’s a cruel irony. He appears to recognize death is very close, and in recognizing that, he also appears to realize this is his one chance to be heard, and so he struts and frets upon that stage, full of sound and fury. And even if his actions, as one talking head notes, were “nothing but a desperate and impotent cry”, you can’t help but note that for a few hours, he wasn’t invisible.

Programming Note: Olympism Descends

During the old-old school Olympics of ancient Greece, a Truce was brokered, allowing athletes and spectators and whoever else to travel from and then back to their respective hangouts in peace so that they could come and see the athletic feats of strength without any provocateurs starting some shit, as the Greeks used to say. The truce has mostly been done away with in the modern era, aside from acting as a kind of International Olympic Committee (IOC) dog and pony show, like Putin and Russia promising peace during Sochi 2014 until they militarily sashayed into Ukraine on the sly.

Cinema Romantico, however, still likes to honor its own version of an Olympic Truce every four two years. We like to push pause. We like to step away from the cinema, consciously ignore social media and even do our best to put a moratorium on things like, say, the worst Presidential election in the history of my country. We like to give ourselves over to the Olympics. We always have. We always will. We do, again, beginning tomorrow, and for the next two weeks.

Yet, even as we do, we remain conscious of the infinite ails plaguing these Games. Those ails go beyond the IOC’s corruption, which is real and rampant, and they go beyond doping, which is real and rampant. No, this is about the root problems of Rio, and the root problems of Brazil itself, and how the presence of the Olympics has merely exacerbated them, and how the IOC’s claims of “harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” is awe-inspiring blarney. And even if we devote ourselves to the Olympics themselves, we wish to remain conscious of the plight of Brazil itself.

You may have long since noted that Cinema Romantico gives space on Mondays and Tuesdays to reviews of new(ish) movies and on Fridays to classic cinema. So, for the next fortnight, Mondays and Tuesdays will consist of reviews of new(ish) Brazilian films and Fridays will consist of classic Brazilian cinema. And please, please forgive us for the inevitable Olympics-related posts that will infiltrate this otherwise sacred cinematic space (like, you know, maybe tomorrow). I guarantee you we will not be able to help it. Thank you in advance.

Love, peace and Olympism.