Like many foreign directors who get tempted by the allure of Hollywood, Walter Salles fell off when he got to direct his first American film. One of Brazil’s greatest directors (“Central Station,” “The Motorcycle Diaries”), Salles made his first major misstep when he took on the impersonal horror remake “Dark Waters,” with Jennifer Connelly completely bereft of his intimate touches (a film anyone could have directed, really).
Maybe this detour made him rethink his career, but either way, Salles returns to his homeland (and an old collaborator in Daniela Thomas, the films co-director; they did two short previously) and the rich stories from the desperate lives of those that live in the São Paulo favela slums; a sad locale that’s feature in Brazilian films often.
The film centers on a family with four fatherless brothers and their sad, supportive, but beleaguered mother who keeps getting pregnant by random men who never stick around. The brothers are like a random rat-pack of kids that look like their adopted and when we’re introduced to the dirt-poor family, mom has already been impregnated with child number five. They all live on a desperate pittance, so its pretty unconscionable that she’d let this happen yet again.
There’s Dinho, the pious son that has his own almost-blind faith duly tested, the football aspirant Dario; Dênis, the motorcycle courier who has fathered his own child, and the young and bitter Reginaldo, whose dark skin makes him the lowest of the low of the already miserable totem pole and his desire to find his father trumps any of his mothers objections.
The film tracks their disparate path, but is tied to their similar hopes and dreams, all of which may one day free from the seemingly hopeless and bleak slums they call home. Most of the cast in the film were first timers, but you could never tell by their bold performances. Aside from a climax that tethers their dreams and failures only in spirit, the filmmakers generally resist any kind of narrative that includes redemptive tales or fairytale-like conventions.
It’s also nice to see filmmakers inject humor, empathy and pathos into already bleak situations. It kind of drives us nuts when a script or narrative asphyxiates with impossible conflicts and obstacles and one failure after another on characters. You need to let a story breath and have some joie de vivre, and these filmmakers wisely aren’t trying to wag their finger at the apathetic world and rather tell the rich story of every day people’s lives. We liked the film a lot, but we’re not sure it moved us much as the previous Salles films we mentioned (two that we adore). Still we’re so out of it, we’re going to reserve final judgement. Though it sounds like a B-ish grade.
We had reported it months ago, but we had forgotten that the great Gustavo Santaolla had composed the score and his moody, evocative and ambient score helped Salles really underscore some of the more sublime moods.