Cinema against predictability
Awarded playwright Mário Bortolotto is in the feature Nine
Chronicles for a Screaming Heart (photo by Fred Chalub)
One day, a French friend of mine asked me why Brazilian feature films did not meet the expectations generated by the shorts. Curator of an international festival, she identifies in many shorts the pursuit of an aesthetics that seeks to avoid the obvious. But she does not think the same applies to most feature films produced in Brazil in the last few years.
Searching for answers, we discussed possibilities. We discussed the funding model in Brazil, which is founded on the use of subjective criteria to analyze projects and stand in the way of more innovative approaches; we talked about the private sector, which ignores the artistic potential of this country; we also talked about the filmmakers, of course. Many of them forsake boldness under the illusion that they can make popular films with the insufficient funding they get from state companies and governments.
Júlio Andrade and Denise Weinberg (photo: C. Oliveira)
We spent two days discussing that. Nevertheless, I do not know whether I have found an appropriate answer. This is a deeply nuanced reality. Now, as I am involved in the editing of Nine Chronicles for a Screaming Heart, I realize that I am still trying to answer that question. Not with words, but with the film. The way it was conceived, the way it was made and the objectives we are pursuing are unusual in the Brazilian context.
First, we overcame the hurdles represented by the demand for a conventional screenplay and for some kind of extra-narrative appeal (commercial, social or moral), an unwritten requirement that determines the destination of the money invested in films in Brazil. Not at any point has there been a formal screenplay; what we had instead were nine stories developed by co-writer Cristiane Oliveira and me. They were then given to the actors, who had the chance to recreate them at each rehearsal. We rewrote dialogs and situations. Even the personalities of some of the characters were rethought during that intense process of dramaturgic construction.
Felipe Kannenberg (photo: Cristiane Oliveira)
Interestingly, the rehearsals brought to the surface the personal side of the stories. They elucidated why the stories had such a pull on me, even though they were only sketches. I noticed that many of the actors experienced a similar degree of identification. That was because the rehearsals allowed us to recover what is basic, what is essential about being human. That was our guiding principle: to understand how the human manifests itself without any value judgments, nor concessions to common sense.
Ideas were renewed up to the last take of each shot. However, it never felt like we were adrift. The foundation for everything, including the work of the actors, was established in advance, in the discussions with my closest partners – cinematographer André Carvalheira, art director Valéria Verba and sound technician Ricardo Reis; as well as with Cristiane Oliveira, who was also assistant director. When I invited them to be in the project, I made it clear that each chronicle might take unexpected turns. It was crucial that we were able to create a solid aesthetic proposition that would be capable of connecting those narratives. That is how the “city” became a hidden protagonist.
Simone Spoladore and Vinícius Ferreira (photo: F. Chalub)
Since 2007, I have had one foot in Brasília (a planned city) and the other one in São Paulo (a chaotic megalopolis). I have always identified with the “B side” of the megalopolis, with its derelict houses, their walls stained by pollution and the passage of time. These places convey to me an instigating sensation of lived experience. They exist, they are there before us, but they are not noticed. I myself have felt like that. What is that feeling? That is the key to understand the stories that make the movie.
We were aware of the role that the locations would play in defining the look of the film. Always with Cristiane and Valéria, I rummaged through São Paulo after that sensation of lived experience. We looked for places that would need little or no set designing interference. We found old mansions turned into slum tenements, hotels taken over by mites and even a little backyard shed being used as a toilet by rabbits.
Eucir de Souza and Larissa Salgado (photo: C. Oliveira)
We soon understood what is that feeling that I experience whenever I contemplate the “B side” of this city: it is the desperate emptiness caused by neglect. That led to the premise of situating the action in derelict settings. Rather than indicating a financial condition, the setting acts on the spectator’s unconscious and illustrates the characters’ state of mind. Thus we overcame another hurdle, the reduction of human drama to elementary social or economic issues – a recurring practice in Brazilian film, and also among those who judge the films made in Latin America, which are as diverse as the universe they represent.
The initial idea consisted in avoiding a social or moral justification for the plots, allowing them to be fed by their own contradictions and subtleties of behavior. All characters have their own particular misery. Be it the hooker who is tired of her work, or the exemplary civil servant. In that sense, to respond to the need for change is more than an act of survival. To confront neglect is to fight against indifference, to refuse to accept more of the same. That is why I was so determined to make this film, because it expresses the dimension of my inquietude.
* Feature film Nine Chronicles for a Screaming Heart is fundraising for post-production costs. More information will be published here, soon.
