Flying Down to Rio:
The Inaugural Session of Kultur Cine Club
Ask somebody to think of “Brazil” and, notwithstanding fans of Terry Gilliam’s quirky 1985 film by the same name, it’s likely that images of the country’s most famous city, Rio de Janeiro, are likely to come to mind. Sugar Loaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer statue, Copacabana, the carnival parade, Maracanã stadium, the Santa Teresa tram, and in my case, the sight of sculpted Brazilian men squeezed into impossibly tight posing pouches on Ipanema beach, are all poignant examples of Rio’s iconography.
The fact that these should be so vivid in our imagination is hardly surprising – that rather campy 1979 sci-fi Bond flick Moonraker is a perfect example of how the cultural and geographical landmarks of Brazil’s Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City) have been used by Hollywood as shortcuts to some vague notion of “Brazilianess”, if indeed, such as thing exists. And if you think Brazilian cinema has escaped the same phenomenon, think again. You don’t need to look any further than the white telephone sets of the chanchada, a slap-stick Carry On-type comedy genre produced in the 1950s and 60s, to see the same images cropping up.
Nevertheless, there is, of course, another side to modern Rio: the favelas or shantytowns, where over a fifth of the city’s population currently resides. Occupying an ambiguous space within carioca (Rio) society, these communities are peripheral yet simultaneously integral to city life, the site of extreme social deprivation and violence but also home to some of Brazil’s most talented musicians, Seu Jorge and Bezerra Da Silva among them. In response to the frivolity of more popular genres such as the abovementioned chanchada, Cinema Novo (New Cinema) directors such as Nelson Pereira dos Santos (Rio 40 Degrees, 1955 and Rio Northern Zone, 1957)would use the favela in the 1950s and 60s as a setting for realist films that sought to highlight the stark reality of day-to-day life for ordinary Brazilians.And since the mid-90s, when the passing of a new audio-visual law spurred a boom in film production known as the retomada or “rebirth”, it is a location to which many contemporary Brazilian films have returned, albeit in more a polished form. Lúcia Murat’s Quase dois irmaõs (Almost Two Brothers, 2004), in particular, provides a particularly candid portrait of the favela and its relationship with middle-class Rio, though Fernando Meirelles’ Cidade de deus (City of God, 2002) is undoubtedly the film that has garnered the most international attention and box-office returns.
And it is here that Kultur Cine Club kicks off its journey with the screening of two episodes from the film’s spin-off television series, Cidade dos homens (City of Men, 2003). Apparently the first series of its kind in Brazil attracting over 35 million viewers, City of Men offers a bittersweet tale of two 13-year-old boys, Laranjinha and Acerola, as they beat a path towards manhood through the drug-dealers and hustlers of the Rio slum in which they reside. In Episode 1, The Emperor’s Crown, we see the boys’ hopes of going on a school trip dashed by money problems, flunked exams and new neighbourhood drug barons. Amidst the confusion, though, there is still time to learn about Napoleon’s attack on England and why Portugal’s King Dom João VI had to escape to Brazil. Meanwhile, in Episode Three, Post, the drug barons are back again, this time forcing the pair to work as postmen in the absence in the absence of mail delivery in the favela. It’s not long, however, before their bright ideas turn sour and the boys find themselves in trouble once more.
Also screening in the inaugural session of Kultur Cine Club is Bala perdida (Stray Bullet, Victor Lopes, Brazil, 2003) featuring an award winning cast including Alexander Rodrigues (Rocket, City of God), and Vinícius de Oliveira (Josué, Central Station). In this 14 minute short a woman is robbed at gunpoint in a bustling square in downtown Rio. Pursued by the police, the robber takes drastic action and a gunfight ensues. Amidst the bullets and confusion of those caught up in the crossfire, we discover the tragic consequences of an everyday event in the city.
And if this wasn’t enough, there’ll be critical discussion afterwards with our very own Brazilian film experts Lúcia Nagib (film critic for Folha de São Paulo and Centenary Professor of World Cinema, University of Leeds), Andrew Tudor (Head of Theatre, Film and Television at York University) and Stephanie Dennison (Director of the Centre for Brazilian Film Studies, University of Leeds). So grab a caiparinha, sit back and enjoy…because the world is closer than you think!
