Carandiru

Hector Babenco, Brazil/Argentina, 2003, 146 minutes

Based on the memoirs of Dr. Drauzio Vella who carried out AIDS prevention work in the Sao Paulo Detention Centre Carandiru and the events that led up to the 1992 prison riot, Carandiru is a profoundly moving film. Made with the same humanizing spirit as The Shawshank Redemption, this is a prison drama that examines everything from the roots of crime to sexuality. Much of the story centres on the lives of the inmates prior to incarceration, as told to the doctor, and what eventually led them to Caradiru: characters like Highness and his two wives, Calva and Rosirene, and the adoptive brothers Zico and Deusdete.

Although all the inmates are portrayed as individuals, few are rendered with more tenderness than Too Bad and Lady Di. These are two characters who, in the hands ofa different director, would be mere caricatures. Too Bad is the diminutive thief who also acts as the doctor’s assistant. Lady Di is a statuesque transsexual. The scene where they get their HIV test results, and then their wedding (in the prison, presided over by a chorus of queens) is portrayed with remarkable sincerity. Although Carandiru shares certain characteristics with other prison dramas, it lacks the cloying sentimentality that so often lowers this genre into the gutter of melodrama. The last ten minutes of the film are utterly harrowing. The filthy steps of the dilapidated prison are literally awash in rivers of blood. Carandiru’s gritty realism is rendered even more authentic when you realise that the film was actually shot inside the real prison, just prior to its demolition.

Review by Sarah Artt
Written for EUFS Programme Spring 2005