Brazil/Argentina, 2003
Director: Hector Babenco
Score: ***

CARANDIRU is the name of a cell inside Sao Paulo’s house of detention.  The film begins with two inmates Lula and Dagger settling a score.  The scene serves as a worthy introduction to welcome the doctor (Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos), who forms the centre around which the story revolves.  The film is based on an adaptation of the book this doctor, Drauzio Varella wrote while working 12 years in Sao Paulo’s infamous Casa de Detencao prison.

As in all prison movies, CARANDIRU shows overcrowded cells, harsh conditions and violent inmates.  Fact or fiction, nothing has not been seen before, especially after the popular TV show OZ has been aired.  But Carandiru also depicts the beginning of the era of aids and its effects on both the prisoners and the doctor. 

Brazilian films like AMORES PERROS and CITY OF GOD have recently hit the big screen like an explosive.  Hector Babenco’s (PIXOTE and KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN) film, however, though also based on controversial subject matter feels quite tame.  One reason is his resignation to telling the story of the prisoners through a series of vignettes, most of which are shown through flashbacks, giving the viewer the feeling that what has transpired is a thing of the past.  Also, certain scenes like the drag queen performing a sex act with a condom over a bottle fail to shock, probably because the viewer expects such incidents to happen in prison cells.  In films like CITY OF GOD, the death and killing acts performed by adolescents were disturbing deeds on their own.  On the positive side, Babenco directs the relationships of the prisoners with depth and intelligence.  The prisoners unite to give Zico (Wagner Moura), the drug dealer his come-uppance for innocently killing his teen mate (Ciao Blat).  When the doctor sees Highness’ two women quarreling over him during visitation day, a remark is made on the reason things of this nature never happens to him - the failure of himself to show affection.  Babenco’s prisoners do not evoke our sympathy.  Babenco, instead allows the viewer to see them as human beings with failures, hopes and dreams.  But he effectively brings down the dreams of a few prisoners through aids which will eventually take its deathly toll.

The film’s climax is the massacre of October 2nd 1992 when the guards slaughter over 100 prisoners.  The mayhem is handled expertly enough with quick edits and appropriately placed camera shots.  Babenco opts not to give any one reason (the winning of the soccer time, the fight over drying of clothes etc.) for the riot which prompted the shoot-out.  But the fact that the doctor is at the time on his weekend furlough seems to suggest that he is the heart and soul of what keeps order in the place. 

Carandiru makes an intriguing enough venture into the real world of living on the edge.  Too bad the climax is loosely linked to the other parts of the story.  Together with the lack of a strong narrative or character driven plot, the film fails to achieve the punch that director Babenco obviously wanted his film to have.  Or what his purpose of the film is to be besides showcasing the Detention Centre’s conditions.

Review by Gilbert Seah.