Essay: Brazilian Films

Twelve Facts About Brazil and its People That One Learns From Brazilian Films of the Last Four Decades

by Marcelo Gilli

1.Ninety per cent of all Brazilian people live in the Northeastern region of the country.
2.The remaining ten per cent live in Rio's shantytowns.
3.Of the people living in the Northeastern area, ninety per cent live in the semi-arid and arid regions.
4.The remaining ten per cent live in paradisiac beaches.
5.There are only two professions in Brazil: musician and drug dealer (applicable only to people that don't live in the Northeastern area; those that do have no profession; their living is made by some mysterious, supernatural means, or else they die of hunger.)
6.Brazilian History encompasses the period that goes from 1964 to 1985, during which there was a military dictatorship ruling the country. That is why all Brazilian films are either set in that period or in the present (this means that Brazil continued to exist after 1985, but only in an everlasting present where nothing of long-lasting importance or interest ever happens).
7.Ninety per cent of the people that lived in Brazil during the military dictatorship were communists engaged in movements to overthrow the government.
8.The remaining ten per cent were comprised of (a) mothers and (b) torturers for the regime.
9.There is a very small percentage (0.000000001%) of Brazilians that lives neither in the Northeastern area nor in Rio's shantytowns. These people live in middle-class urban Rio and spend ninety-nine per cent of their time in romantic or sexual affairs.
10.The professions that occupy the remaining 1% of the time of this tiny percentage of Brazilians are: TV journalist if they are female; fiction writer if they are male. They are all politically progressive, a doctrine that in Brazil is comprised of the two following points, in order of decreasing importance: (a) Fidel Castro is a person above reproach and a great benefactor of humanity; (b) Every other doctrine point that pertains to internal economic or political issues of Brazil depends on (and is contrary to) what the Great Rightwing Conspiracy (which is also an extremely shifting concept but must always include the U.S.A.) believes at a certain instant.
11.Old people in Brazil are imbued with a serene wisdom. They are frantically engaged in romantic or sexual affairs.
12.There are only two places where you will find children in Brazil: (a) in shantytowns where they all carry submachineguns and deal drugs, and (b) in a magical region populated by elves, dolphins and blonde TV showwomen -- but of course no one really knows where this lies on the map.

(Inspired by Dale Thomajan's "10 Things We Hate About Them: What 90s Films Tell Us About 90s Films", Film Comment, July-August 1999)