Carandiru

Carandiru tells the real-life story of the titular prison, where 111 prisoners were murdered by over-eager riot police. If Hollywood ever decides to remake the film, they won’t have to change much; Carandiru already has in place the sort of cutesy characterizations and simplistic plotting that mainstream American movies seem to crave. The first two hours of Carandiru essentially works like an average prison film, with a select group of inmates coming to the forefront. Among them is a charismatic prisoner named Highness (Ailton Graca, whose resemblance to Denzel Washington is uncanny) who’s juggling two wives, and Lady Di (Rodrigo Santoro), a transvestite planning to marry a fellow inmate. We meet the various convicts through the eyes of a doctor (played by Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos) that’s just started work at the prison. Finally, after two hours of almost interminable soap opera-esque shenanigans, the movie focuses on the pivotal riot that triggered the horrifying bloodbath. Carandiru clearly has its intentions in the right place – this is an awful event that most people have never even heard of – but the execution undermines the authenticity of the story. Director Hector Babenco (who also co-wrote the screenplay) apparently believes the audience will lose interest unless he peppers the film with quirky supporting characters, including the aforementioned prisoners. As a result, there are few figures in the movie that feel realistic; the compassionate doctor is one of them, but his screen time is fairly limited. As it turns out, the prison itself is far more compelling than anyone inside it; the inmates are seemingly allowed to bunk where ever they like, and decorate their cells to their choosing (the character of Lady Di even has an actual bed in his room). And once the massacre does begin, the movie goes completely over-the-top – portraying the attacking soldiers as rabid dogs and the prisoners as defenseless kittens. It’s at this point that Carandiru turns into an Important Movie, with slow motion accompanied by sweeping music as we view the carnage and the dead inmates. Babenco even goes so far as to film one of the casualties in the Christ pose, which is taking things just a tad far (putting it mildly).

*1/2 out of ****