Challenging Unjust Institutions Through Film

Allen Thayer

Rio de Janeiro state recently proposed and then quickly withdrew a plan to build walls around many of its lawless shanty towns, more commonly referred to as favelas, in order to contain the criminals and rampant crime from spreading to the rest of the city. Since the sprouting of these illegal squatter communities, they have existed side-by-side with the rest of Rio’s population, but this recent proposal would have enhanced the feeling of separation, both symbolically and physically between Brazil’s rich and poor.

The favela as one of Brazil’s most well known modern creations is an example of an informal urban institution, with its own laws, or lack there of, its own economy, its own leadership (most commonly narco-trafficking gangs) and for a few brief days, it was to have its own borders. In the past four years there have been several Brazilian films, all based on true stories, that deal with and present ideological challenges to a number of Brazil’s institutions, be they state-sponsored formal institutions like the prison depicted in Carandiru, the private mental asylums that is the setting for O Bicho de Sete Cabeças, or the informal extra-judicial institution of one of Rio’s most famous favelas, Cidade de Deus.

Traditionally institutions do not make for compelling film settings, however in all three films, the role of the institution is omnipresent, forcing the protagonists to either accept or reject their condition within these institutions. In all three cases, the protagonists find that they have mixed feelings for the institutions they are attached to; mostly they want to flee the confining environment, but the relationships and community they share with other individuals begs them to remain. Objectively, we can recognize that all three of these institutions are inequitable, dangerous, and in serious need of reform. It is this very observation, however, that suggests the crux of the problem: who is to reform these entities? Should it be those who suffer within them, or should it be the actors and environment who in fact created them, and which option is more realistic?

There is no question that each of these filmmakers had in mind a project of consciousness raising, however upon viewing all three films, the conclusions leave the viewer with different messages about what they (the viewers) should do or think about the problem presented, and what is to become of the problematic institutions portrayed in the films.

The recent, or should I say continuing, consolidation of democracy in Brazil has given the Brazilian citizenry the stability to begin to look beyond immediate stability and towards some of its persistent and complicated social problems, many of which are based on centuries of inequitable race, class, and gender relations. The three films I have selected challenge several of Brazil’s most problematic official and unofficial institutions, bringing these issues to a much larger audience than the people that directly experience these conditions and the activists that work to address them. For two of these films, Cidade de Deus and Carandiru, their message is traveling as far as the US and Europe where their tragic stories are resonating with foreign audiences and potentially reasserting pressure back on Brazil to push for reform.

This paper will analyze the political dynamics of each film: examining the nature of the institutions portrayed, identifying the protagonists’ conditions and chosen actions, discussing their opportunities and choices for finding freedom within or beyond the institution, and finally critiquing the overall message, as far as what the viewer is expected to "take away" from the film about these institutions.

Cidade de Deus

Some of Brazil’s most inequitable institutions are actually not state-sanctioned, but can be seen as by-products of modern Brazilian society. The urban favela is probably the best known of Brazil’s informal institutions. Within the confines of the narrow streets and poor construction lives a universe that is otherworldly compared to the rest of the city (in the case of Cidade de Deus the city is Rio de Janeiro, but other cities also contain sizable favelas). Here narco-traffickers manage all of the basic municipal duties, including policing, minor health services and even entertainment in the form of weekly bailes (funk parties).

Informal institutions are in some ways more rigid than formal ones because instead of having bureaucracies and officials monitoring and running these institutions, society at large enforces and legitimizes informal institutions. The favela is a peculiar case where it is both informal in its independence from any formal mechanisms of control, yet the very socio-economic conditions in Brazil’s cities effectively means that the favela is a total institution. According to Erving Goffman, "Their encompassing or total character is symbolized by the barrier to social intercourse with the outside and to departure that is often built right into the physical plant, such as locked doors, high walls, barbed wire, cliffs, water, forests, or moors."

Goffman adds that the social arrangements in total institutions also suggest that, "all aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority." Who is this single authority? As we see in Cidade de Deus, the drug gangs effectively dictate the daily routine within the favela: where you can go, where you cannot, and are the ultimate authority on all relationships within the neighborhood. What makes this situation different from the other institutions we will examine is a lifestyle and a community with no set "release date." Unlike a prison or a mental institution there is no set time of incarceration, meaning favelados (those who live in favelas) have no mechanisms for removing themselves from these conditions other than personal ambition and determination to move up the steep socio-economic ladder.

There are no ways to legislate against informal institutions. Passing referendums or staging massive protests will not change the socio-political reality of favela dwellers. The state is involved in favelas, however its involvement invariably adds to the misery of the inhabitants as terror, racism, classism and denial of services define the favelados experience with the official state.

In the film Cidade de Deus the characters all struggle with their existence in their environment. The environment, this shantytown, challenges each of them to choose a path of either acceptance or rejection of their current condition. Throughout the film there are reference to those who are from Cidade de Deus yet have managed to "get out" to other parts of the city, such as the photo technician at the newspaper where Buscapé works as a delivery boy. Buscapé, more than any other character, rejects his fate within the favela yet he does not know how to remove himself from it. The others either take positions of benign resignation or active involvement in the crime networks that dominate the favela.

For those who participate in the crime organizations, they attempt to escape their reality by dominating it. A young hoodlum in the chief narco-trafficker’s gang, Filé-com-Fritas, insists that he is a man and not a boy (despite his being less than 10-years old) because he, "snorts, smokes, robs and kills." The gangs’ complete monopoly on power (excepting rivalries between gangs) means that they rule the neighborhoods without restraint and with complete impunity. Buscapé and Bené (who is accidentally killed the night before planning to leave the favela) are forced to choose another existence in order to imagine a life outside of the neighborhood. Bené and his girlfriend decide to move to a farm and be "hippies," while Buscapé wants to be a photographer. For both of these "refugees" they cannot conceive of being able to achieve these identities while still living in the favela.

Cidade de Deus’ message is ambiguous, leaving the viewer uncertain about the future of the favela or the many characters within it. The film ends with a new generation of hoodlums (still adolescents, if not children) killing, robbing and terrorizing the neighborhood, while Buscapé informs the audience through his narration that, "oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I’m a photographer." Some are able to escape, by becoming something, or someone, different and others continue to transcend their misery by dominating everything around them. Yet the real protagonist, the real actor, is the favela itself.

Carandiru

Carandiru, a film based on the true story of the largest prison in Latin America, takes the viewer into the heart of a massive state-sponsored institution. For North American viewers, Carandiru is a prison unlike any prison Americans might be familiar with. Due to the enormity of the prison and the apparent lack of government funding, Carandiru is basically self-governed, meaning the prisoners themselves control nearly all of the services and community activities within the confines of the prison.

The prisoners developed their own social hierarchy with specific rules of conduct, commerce, and crime, including a ranking of severity of crimes, where rape is the most heinous. Within this model of institution all types of individuals find ways of coping with their past mistakes while making sure that they stay alive long enough to be released back into society. Using the device of confessions to the narrator, the film tells the stories of several of the prisoners’ pre-histories. The viewer learns about the prisoner population through these confessionals and we get the sense that the prisoners find solace in the telling of their stories to a neutral party. Many of these stories convey to the viewer the circumstantial nature of the prisoners’ crimes, like the young man who killed his sister’s rapist, or the philandering hoodlum that got turned in by his jealous wife. The film clearly calls into question the equality of Brazil’s judicial system, in its critical portrayal of Brazil’s police and penal system, not to mention the proximity of Carandiru’s tragedy to the despicable corruption of impeached-President Fernando Collor.

The prisoners also find freedom in their ability to self-organize, taking responsibility for themselves and for their friends and even their enemies. The community that exists inside Carandiru is truly the most positive influence on their daily existence. When visitor’s day arrives, the prison transforms into a scene reminiscent of a carnival, with huge amounts of food, performances, wives and children. Friends introduce their families to each other and for a brief period the prisoners are reminded of what life is like beyond the walls. However, the prisoners are regularly reminded of the limits on their freedom, as when Chico, the older black man, requests to visit with his family on a day other than visitors day and when his family does not visit he loses his temper and head-butts a guard, landing him time in solitary confinement.

Through these scenes of community and confessionals the viewer sees the humanity of some of these characters, while the harsh reality of the institution’s mission and its relationship to the popular view within Brazilian society that determines these prisoners to be less than human. Michel Foucault points out that despite the relative comfort or freedom prisoners may experience, the rebellions against the institution that holds them there, "were revolts, at the level of the body, against the very body of the prison. What was at issue was not whether the prison environment was too harsh or too aseptic, too primitive or too efficient, but its very materiality as an instrument and vector of power." This power dynamic becomes clear by when we see a riot begin and the military police quell the disturbance with unbelievably brutal force, killing hundreds of unarmed prisoners in the process.

As a critique of an institution, Carandiru is a forgone conclusion. The real-life story meant that the moral is already self-evident to the viewer before the film begins. However, the film goes beyond a simple critique of an archaic, inhumane and inequitable penal system, and tries to demonstrate the humanity of the prisoners themselves, critiquing not just the penal system, but the judicial system and Brazilian society at large for buying into the racist and classist construction of its prisons.

O Bicho de Sete Cabeças

The weakest of the three films, O Bicho de Sete Cabeças deals with a troubled teenager who is sent to a mental institution because of minor experimentations with marijuana and his father’s inability to relate to his son’s predictable adolescent anxieties. Neto is sent to two different mental institutions throughout the course of the film. Unlike the other two institutions portrayed in the previous films that are almost exclusively reserved for the most poor and underprivileged sectors of Brazilian society, this film deals with a slightly different demographic and a different type of institution. Many mental institutions are privately run and therefore not subject to the same level of public scrutiny as public institutions, and unlike Carandiru where the inmates have a certain amount of freedom within the walls of the institution, O Bicho de Sete Cabeças puts the viewer inside a total institution where nearly all of one’s freedoms are denied.

For a teenager suffering from depression and an unhealthy familial relationship, the mental institution does not seem like a good fit. Neto emerges from the first institution clearly more troubled and unstable than before so it is no surprise when he is forced into another institution after having a violent breakdown at a neighborhood party. His responses to his imprisonment are predictable: a mix of both self-pity and rebellion with a good deal of resentment towards his father for putting him there. Logically this leads him into a downward spiral of reckless rebellion, followed by punishment and he slowly begins to lose himself in the struggle against his own imprisonment. Part of his frustration clearly is a product of the stratified interactions between the "inmates" and the "staff." Goffman points out this problematic relationship: "Staff tends to feel superior and righteous; inmates tend, in some ways at least, to feel inferior, weak, blameworthy, and guilty." It is unclear whether or not he truly intended on killing himself when he set his solitary-confinement chamber on fire, leaving the viewer to wonder if he truly wants to die or whether he is beginning to see himself as a martyr. His late-night rampage through the mental institution suggests that in some way he was just seeking attention and had no real desire to escape or kill himself.

The film’s fault is evident in its weak conclusion that fails to reconcile Neto’s release (for unclear reasons) with his eventual recovery. Since the film is based on a book by the main character the viewer already knows that Neto will recover, yet the film does not help the viewer understand why, how or when this positive transformation takes place.

Like Carandiru, O Bicho de Sete Cabeças critiques on an obvious target. Brazil’s mental institutions at the time of the book’s publishing were horribly out of date and in serious need of reform. Just as the actual massacre at Carandiru became the catalyst for reform of the penal system, the book, Canto dos Malditos, by Austregésilo Carrano served as the warning shot for Brazil to reform its mental institutions. The book and film reflect the changing awareness of society towards those with mental handicaps and even temporary mental conditions such as breakdowns or severe drug addiction. Also like Carandiru, this film demonstrates the humanity of the "less-than-human" prisoners, however not nearly as convincingly or realistically.

This film also highlights another current problem in Brazilian society, the collapse of family as a product of modernization and the middle-class drive to climb the socio-economic ladder. Neto’s father shares much of the blame for Neto’s mental difficulties yet he refuses to address his son’s problems directly and instead sends his son to an impersonal, modern institution. For these characters the pressures of modern life and the pursuit of a better life appear to be an even stronger drive than they were for those in Cidade de Deus’ favela. But unlike the favela, the government has a stake and better capacity to address the errant mental institution even though it may be privately owned or operated, it at least falls within the scope of government control, whereas the favela lies clearly beyond the Brazilian government’s jurisdiction.

Conclusion

The three films examined in this film show the Brazilian people challenging the existing systems of oppression that were allowed to continue unchecked for the decades during the dictatorship, but with democratization these same institutions are finally receiving their critique. Both Carandiru and O Bicho de Sete Cabeças show that these institutions have outlived their relevance in their current forms and the destruction of these institutions (either physically or ideologically) acts as the happy ending for the characters’ stories. In contrast, Cidade de Deus concludes that the inequity and misery of this institution is self-perpetuating and government solutions are short-lived and ineffective.

A possible conclusion might be that while informal institutions are easier to escape from, in theory, in practice they are much more restrictive and also much less susceptible to public pressure or government actions. Therefore, maybe Cidade de Deus’ director, Fernando Meirelles’ pessimistic ending was actually a sobering reminder of the fundamental problem with societally reinforced, informal institutions that are a product of inequitable economic distribution, racism and classism. As we can see by the anecdote that opened this paper, the authorities are struggling to understand the fundamental causes of the favela and unlike the other film’s institutional targets, the favela remains one of urban Brazil’s biggest conundrums.