While I was in Brazil, I finally had the chance to see the highly-anticipated film Tropa de Elite 2, and I agreed that it was not only fantastic, but possibly even better than the first movie. It was a unique time to see it, too, since it was during the week of violence and I saw it in the same area where a lot of the film takes place.
That the director, José Padilha, is brilliant, is not news. He started out doing documentaries, and one of his first full length films, Bus 174, caught my eye long before I was even moved to Brazil. Padilha's ability to assess a complex social conflict from various perspectives is part of what makes him such a powerful filmmaker.
Then he created Elite Squad, a controversial film that was a huge hit in Brazil, but not exactly in the box office: millions of people watched it on pirated DVDs before the movie even came out in theaters. While it was a success in terms of popularity, some argued that the film idolized BOPE, the Rio SWAT, and its violent methods. This movie focused on the war between the police and drug traffickers, as well as touching on corruption in the military police. Others enjoyed the movie's extreme violence, watching with glee as the protagonists gunned down criminals in the favelas. While it was certainly a provocative film, the next one went much further to explain Rio's problems with violence and was much more deliberate in identifying the good guys and the bad guys, and was less ambiguous in its conclusions.
Tropa de Elite 2 delves into the issue of Rio's milicias, the paramilitary groups made up of former police and current off duty officers who control some of Rio's favelas, after wresting control from the drug traffickers. It also demonstrates that it's not just the milicias who are behind the incredible corruption in Rio's security forces; local politicians have ties to, or are even part of these groups, and the movie hints that these political ties go even higher, to Brasilia.
But here's the caveat: at the beginning of the film, a message appears on the screen warning viewers that the movie is fictional, and that any resemblance with real people or events is pure coincidence. While Padilha's strong suit, in my opinion, is the documentary, he found a way to adapt this form in a way that is both profitable and reaches a much larger audience: taking real events and adapting them to a script, combining several real people into single characters, rearranging events, and changing names, but leaving the bare bones of reality there for everyone to see. And this brilliant method paid off: over 10 million people have seen the movie since its October release, and the movie broke records to become the most viewed Brazilian film in history, breaking the previous record of the 1976 film Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos, a movie based on a Jorge Amado novel. It had also raked in $59 million as of earlier this month. Pirated DVDs were much less of a problem this time around, and in talking to people, I learned that people who almost never go to the movies went to theaters to see Tropa 2, some because they felt a little guilty about what happened with the first film, and some because they were just anxious to see it.
Here's a little outline of one viewer's hypothesis on who the characters in the movie are based on:
The other thing that Padilha did with this film was touching on some of the most basic insecurities and fears that Brazilians have, even those outside of Rio: ineffectual and corrupt police, corrupt politicians, and crime. Though the movie was especially relevant to Cariocas, Brazilians from all over the country were able to relate with some of the movie's themes. A recent survey showed that nearly 77 million Brazilians, nearly half of the population, feel insecure in the city or town where they live (see some of the statistics here), since nearly 12 million people were victims of robbery in 2009. What's more, 38 percent felt insecure in their neighborhood, and 21 percent even felt insecure in their homes. The highest rates of insecurity weren't found in the Southeast, but in the North, Brazil's poorest region. According to the survey, only 48 percent of robbery victims reported the incident to police in 2009, the majority citing the reason that they simply didn't believe in the police. More about the study here:
The survey also showed that Brazilians had more luck solving problems by reporting them to PROCON, the Brazilian consumer protection agency, than going straight to the courts: 88.5 percent of those who reported a problem to PROCON had their issues resolved, whereas only 56 percent of those who went to the courts had their issues resolved.
In addition, Padilha blurred the line between fiction and reality by filming in favelas and what appeared to be real prisons in Rio. In fact, local residents were frightened at one point during filming, when they thought that there was an actual police operation and shootout taking place, rather than a film crew with actors. By filming throughout the city and incorporating real police officers as extras, sometimes it was hard to tell if the scenes were real or fake.
By combining all of these fears and insecurities, but making sure to have a gratifying ending that partially satisfies the viewer and partially piques their interest in Padilha's next film, about corruption in the federal government (he doesn't mention the new movie at all, but if you know it's what next you can see Padilha connecting the two movies at the end of Tropa 2).
While Padilha seems to hope to create more awareness about what's actually going on in Rio, and to inspire public outcry, it's not clear if the movie has had major reverberations yet. But there are signs that it had an impact. Padilha has become an outspoken critic of Brazil and Rio's security measures, going on TV and writing editorials to share his views. Also, there have been signs that the government is making a greater effort to combat the milicias. Last week, a police operation uncovered a milicia in Duque de Caxias, and thirty-four people were sought and 25 were arrested, including 2 city councilmen, 13 current military police officers, 4 former military policemen, a Civil Police commissioner, an Army sargent, a Navy sargent, and a former Marine. The remaining 9 are considered fugitives and are being sought by police. The group was discovered after police tapped their phones and found that they were negotiating weapons deals with drug traffickers in Complexo de Alemao, the site of the major military operation last month. The paramilitary group is suspected to have received around R$70,000 by selling weapons to the favela traffickers, and are wanted for extorsion, threats, torture, exploiting locals, installing illegal TV and internet connections, and murder. The question now is what will actually happen when and if all of the accused are tried in court.
Tropa de Elite 2 will have its US premiere at Sundance in January, though there's no official foreign release date. I'll be sure to let you all know when there are opportunities to see the film in the US or Europe, because for anyone interested in Brazil, this is the must-see movie of the year. (For now, you can watch clips and interviews on the film's Youtube channel.)
Tell me about it... The security problem in Brazil is getting out of hand. Strangely, this happens during an economic boom - a time when crime is supposed to fall, since jobs are more plentiful. Just last week, I heard about relatives whose homes were broken into - and this is in the city of Fortaleza,where crime is not really a big issue... this is really sad
Posted by: Ernest | December 30, 2010 at 10:07 AM