Cinema Brasil

After decades of moderate success, Brazilian cinema in the early 1990s had fallen to its knees - In 1992 just one film had received funding for release. However, thanks to Retomada, a government plan to resume support and funding of cinema and other culture Brazilian film has been enjoying a relative renaissance in recent years. Many of the films in this renaissance period have had international releases and have benefited from political freedom to create provocative and stimulating cinema, most notably Central Station [1998], City of God [2002] and The Elite Squad [2007]. On the back of this success, Brazilian international film festivals can be found across three continents and later this year, London will receive its third offering of the Brazilian Film Festival of London.

This year, two documentaries with Brazilian connections have caught international film audiences’ attention: released in February,Waste Land, a story about a landfill site in Rio de Janeiro turned into an artistic canvas thanks to the vision of one artist and the inspiration of the garbage pickers he met and who created the pieces with his guidance. And in June, Senna, a biopic of the life of a Brazilian Ayrton Senna who was a raw and fast talent of Formula One motor racing before his death in a crash in a race aged just 34. Although, both films possess these Brazilian connections it is British directors that have called the shots, but they will nevertheless undoubtedly raise interest in Brazil and its cinema.

Waste Land:

The makers of Waste Land and particularly the artist that the documentary follows, Vik Muniz, are aware of the fact that when they arrive at a landfill site to greet the poorly paid workers who separate rubbish for its recyclable materials, they are the privileged meeting the impoverished. Vik Muniz is not restrained in telling the garbage pickers that he sells artwork for six-figure sums but he tells them because Muniz himself started his working life pushing trolleys for a supermarket and expresses an ordinary excitement and gratitude for his fortunate position that each of the landfill workers, with dreams of bigger things, can empathise with.

The style of the film-making is anything but detached; we are often synthetically hurled in front of images of a few of the garbage pickers, or self-named catadores (pickers of recyclable materials), revelling at the opportunity of being on camera, performing only because the camera is there - quoting Machiavelli, dancing and sharing the spirit of the landfill community to show the world that while they are poor of pocket they are rich in all else. Indeed, despite the life-changing gift of the money from the sales of the artwork and the gift of being the subject and creators of the artwork itself, each of the members of the landfill express a magnificent and genuine pride at being catadores; serving their people and spreading a message of action to improve the way the world addresses waste disposal.

Senna:

Other than the Brazilian theme, the only other thing that Senna shares with Waste Land is the human quality of the storytelling. Ayrton Senna was wild, exuberant and handsome, which makes the tragedy of his death so deeply moving; facing mortality every time he stepped into a racing car, Senna drove precariously, sometimes recklessly, as if he was protected by divine spirits. But the style of documentary couldn’t be more alien to that of Waste Land. Due to the showmanship and drama of the man, Senna is represented entirely through archive footage; there is no additional narration and although we hear the voices of family, fellow racing drivers and officials, we never see their faces. It is the film-makers' knowledge that their own words will always come second to the man himself.

This lack of narrative lends a light touch to the documentary, it is free of posthumous analysis and like the film’s title we are never unsure of the focus of the film. Yet, because of the lack of narrative, the opening thirty minutes of the film never rises above sober sports journalism. Like Formula One at the time, it relies upon the drama of the rivalry between Senna and Prost for it to remain at all exciting.

But this narrative-free style redeems itself when it matters: because the director chooses to allow the drama to speak for itself, the lead up and portrayal of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix is intensely and beautifully sad. Because of the technological battles between Formula One teams to improve the cars at the time, the safety of the drivers were compromised. At the San Marino Grand Prix practice laps a day before Senna’s death, another driver Roland Ratzenberger died instantly from a crash. As a consequence of Ratzenberger’s death the film captures the equivalent of a funeral where the grief-stricken are as upset at the thought of their own mortality as the death of a loved one. This is revealed in the drivers’ grief at a friend’s death, the morbid infatuation of the possibility of their own death and their reluctance to race on the circuit, which ultimately bore the death of Senna. While a technical malfunction was inevitably the reason for Senna’s crash (although the exact malfunction was never found) the documentary owes his death to luck – and this seems befitting of a spiritual man who was daring in life and his driving, and for all talent would not have risen to Formula One without the luck of his privileged background.

Waste Land was screened at OpenCity London Documentary Film Festival.
Senna was released at selected cinemas on June 3^rd.

Christo Hall
The New Wolf 

last time modified: Sept. 13, 2011, 11:03 a.m.