So on Friday night I made a big dinner of mango chicken and rice (which came out well, surprisingly). Then we went over to Eliseu's cousin's house with Eli's brother and other cousin, where for the first hour or so the boys played a soccer game on Playstation (and thankfully I had a book with me and read), and then we watched this amazing new movie called Tropa de Elite, (Elite Squad).
This movie was directed by Jose Padilha, who also directed the incredible documentary "Onibus 174," about a bus hijacking in Rio. The movie is about police corruption and the irony is that it was supposed to be released in theaters here now, but someone stole a copy and pirated it, so now almost everyone in Rio has a pirated DVD. The director was convinced it was a cop who stole it, just proving his point of the movie. Good job guys.
It is, I think, the new "City of God," since it tries to show what is really going on in this city, and oddly the opening explanation and the little text fillers were all in English, so they must be trying to get it sold in the US. However, it did not have subtitles so I had to pay REALLY close attention and still didn't understand 100% of it.
To sum it up, the movie is about police corruption in Rio and how the police, at the different levels (civil, military, etc) managed to extort just about everyone and everything in Rio. But it focuses on the BOPE, the "Elite Squad," that is the Brazilian version of the SWAT. They are the ones who invade favelas, especially after the regular police botch up invasions or extortion visits. It focuses on the captain, who slowly unravels, and the training and selection of new BOPE members as they ascend from the ranks of the military and civil police. And the most horrifying parts are when they show police brutality, and then the subsequent brutality of the favela druglords, in graphic and apparently accurate fashion.
Another interesting thing the movie shows is the intricate social relationships that form the drug trade in Rio: the favela leaders that control the trade with an iron fist, their lackey vendors (armed teenagers and children in the favelas), and also the vapores (the guys who transport the drugs to other parts of the city). The vapores in some cases are middle and upper class teenagers and young adults, in this case a white law student recreational coke and pot user who bought the drugs in the favela to sell from the Xerox store in his college. One of the main characters is a policeman and a law student, who tries to show these rich kids that they are the ones helping to cause the violence by buying drugs that come from the favelas, challenging the concept that the wealthy here are not to blame for the city's violence, and that they are untouchable.
Another thing I found really disturbing was how they showed this one law student working in an NGO in the favela, and how terribly terribly wrong it ended up, even though she was trying to help out the community. Eliseu gave me a look after one of the scenes, but I already have realized that working directly in the favelas here is just a huge risk.
Though it was beautifully done, it's not nearly as good as City of God, at least because the DVD version isn't as well edited or strung together. But it is very eye-opening and a really important wake-up call. After I saw it I couldn't stop thinking about it, especially because the line between good guys and bad guys isn't clear. There are the really bad cops, but some of the cops aren't as corrupt but they are still killing people. A lot of people in Rio believe that these cops have a right to kill the drug lords and all the people involved in the drug trade in the favelas, because otherwise those people will continue to rob and kill and sell drugs and it's better just to get rid of them. But to me the whole conflict is based on economic reasons: the cops extort everyone because they have terrible salaries, and the favela residents are desperately poor and being in the drug trade is an easy ticket out of going hungry. There is this belief, it seems, that certain lives are expendable, if they are the unwanted members of society. Death is thought to be the solution, but it just perpetuates this war that rages in this city.
Another interesting thing about the movie is that it shows how Rio's war is similar to Israel and Palestine's war, though it doesn't literally compare the two (though statistically the war in Rio has had much higher casualties in the past decade than casualties in the Israel conflict). It just shows that part of the cycle of violence is simply vengeance: the cops kill favelados, the favelados kill the cops, the cops kill the favelados, and so on. Cops don't just kill the people from the favela because they think it's necessary; many times the invasions are fueled by a need for retribution, which then fuels retribution of the favelados to kill cops. This solution clearly isn't a solution, and the movie shows how there really is no end in sight.
I think it's supposed to be released in the US in the next month or so, so look for "Elite Squad" in artsy theaters.
Today we're going to Eli's parents' house because it's been 2 weeks since we last went and apparently that is too long so we are going this afternoon to spend the night. Lucky me. Anyway, ate logo.
hey, it's been a lot longer than 2 weeks since you've seen YOUR parents, no???
So why don't you come over and visit here???!!!
Love,
Mom
Posted by: carin | September 02, 2007 at 09:33 AM